


Flowers for the Queen

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Erotica, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Lust, Older Man/Younger Woman, Slow Burn, Vicbourne, Victoria/Lord M - Freeform, Victorian Attitudes, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 23:59:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: She steals his breath, and when he remembers how to breathe again, he smells flowers. Lord Melbourne decides it is a fragrance he must never cease to breathe so long as he is within her presence.





	1. Breathless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have long been obsessed with all things Victorian and it recently crossed my mind to check out the series regarding the woman to whom the era has been dedicated. Ten minutes into this series, I was feverishly, fervently shipping these two with every ounce of my being. . . I absolutely live for comments, and love to hear from readers with any sort of feedback. I try to respond to everyone in kind. Thank you so much for reading this. . .

To say she is small. . . 

It does her no justice. For how could something so minuscule render him so completely hollow of his own breath. 

He finds the situation almost laughable.

Indeed, she has been described as Little Queen. She has been mocked, even, for her stature. He considers her hands, as they are, clasped over her stomach, and he believes there is more power in one of her fingertips than in the entire pile of masculine bodies at the Hall of Parliament. 

He sees this. He feels it in a way he cannot name, but creates a simultaneous scowl and smile to confuse his face. He wishes he had paid more attention when he’d kissed that hand only a moment before. 

A gauzy, white doll sits in a chair nearby, a tiny crown embroidered in golden thread around its wooden, peg head. “May I?” He asks and picks it up, holding it as gently as he might a bouquet of orchids. And like a bouquet of orchids, the little thing seems to give off an exotic, floral aroma as he turns it over in his thick hands. He realizes suddenly he has remembered how to breathe, although he feels as though he could forget again at any moment. He finds himself begging his lungs to breathe, pleading his mind to remember this moment, this fragrance, and the way the new Queen’s eyes follow him curiously around the room like a gray whisper. 

She is no doll. 

Nor will she be ruled. 

She sends him away. He is chided and hushed. Delightful humiliation tingles throughout his entire body like the promise of excitement in the air before a storm. 

For anyone who has said she is small. . . they have not seen her. 

He sees her. 

To return to his chair and robe and brandy would be out of the question. 

He rides off from their encounter and his horse snorts with irritation at the additional anxiety in his seat on this occasion. He rides to Brocket Hall and dismounts in an enthusiastic leap. He strides across the lawn with utmost purpose in his step until he finds the caretaker of his property. 

“I would like to reopen my greenhouses,” he says.


	2. Victoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has named her. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest gratitude for reading my little work. . . I worship comments and try to respond to all. Please do not hesitate to check in and let me know how I am doing. . . Thank you so much for reading. . .

The Privy Council is at once infuriating and intimidating. Victoria looks out over the sea of bloated, male faces. She feels the contempt they hold for her. She pictures them as serpents coiled around eggs, greedily about to devour as many and as quickly as possible. They can barely conceal their disgusted mistrust, can barely keep their disdain clutched within their pudgy gullets long enough for her to take a deep breath and open her mouth. 

She begins. 

“Can’t hear you,” bellows her uncle, Lord Cumberland. He is perhaps the slickest snake of them all, with his slitted eyes and brazen scar. How unfair a regal and just man such as her father should perish but a man such as this slimy relation should be left to walk the earth. 

She looks over her shoulder and finds the steely, green eyes of Lord Melbourne watching her. His face barely changes, and yet he seems to give her an encouraging twitch upwards of his lips, something resembling a smile, but not quite. Without flinching she looks back to her crowd, raises her voice so it is at least louder than her heartbeat, and continues. 

She has heard things of Melbourne. She has heard he is a man of ill repute. She has heard things, the meanings of which she is not even quite certain how to decipher. Why, Lehzen did not even want to allow her to meet alone with him when first he came to greet her and offer his assistance. She’d turned him away in that moment, but she finds herself looking for him now, and finds his eyes are the glassiest sea on which she’s ever gazed. It emboldens her. 

How is it possible a face can exude so little and so much with the same glance? She will need to ponder this another day. 

She sits to greet her crowd. The first Lord approaches and she extends her hand. 

The frozen silence is appalling as he stares up at her with his watery, blue eyes. They are rimmed in pink and with his pale skin, she thinks he resembles a stillborn pig. She chokes back this image as the entire room holds their breath. Melbourne steps to her left shoulder. He dips his head and says low, for her alone, “Lord Ilchester.” 

“Lord Ilchester,” she repeats and the man in red and gold brocade finally takes his leave, only to be replaced by another. Melbourne whispers the name of the next man, and the next, and the next in a respectable rhythm. His breath on her neck is the breeze off of the still sea of his eyes and she is thankful for it. 

In this manner, they regard the parade of men come to pay their respects to her crown. 

Lord Melbourne ushers her to the balcony to greet the throng below. 

She turns back with a thought to thank him for his assistance, but decides against it. Instead she tells him she has always hated her name. She would prefer the Proclamation be rewritten so that she is known only as Victoria. 

“Queen Victoria,” he says with a subtle bow of his head. 

“Yes,” she smiles. “That is it.” Her heart fills with the contentment she knows only when Dash is clutched close to her chest. 

She turns from him to step forward and greet her kingdom. As she steps to the rail of the balcony, she hears the crowd call out her new name, “Victoria!” Yet, she is hearing it as though only in his voice, her name for the first time, as it has come from his lips. 

He has named her.


	3. Tend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many sweet thanks and hugs for all the comments and kudos. You are all so wonderful. It can be daunting writing for a new fandom for the first time, and you have greeted me so splendidly. . . I know this story is off to a bit of a slow and short start, but I am setting things up and hopefully will have a bit more time for writing in days to come. . . for those of you who are not familiar with my writing, I am heavily angst driven, so, buckle up! xoxoxoxo, SS. 
> 
> PS. comments are my life force and are excessively motivating for my writing, so please feel free to let me know how you think of my work. xoxo

The first flowers he plants are roses named for her. Roses are easy enough to grow, if you know what you are doing, and he knows what he is doing. 

The Victoria Roses are mostly white with a subtle glow in the center, reminiscent of peach blossoms in latest spring. They exude a subtle fragrance that is both sweet and spicy. He does not believe a cloying scent would suit Her Majesty. 

While these are blossoming, he busies himself with the nurturing of orchids, a far more difficult task indeed, and yet one in which he can lose himself for hours on end. They are exquisitely fascinating creatures, orchids. He has entreated them to flourish in all manner of shape, size, and color in the past. Additionally, he has managed to make them grow in places far more interesting than a simple pot of soil. There was one summer, he had a small pond filled with lush pink blooms, their roots reaching in a glorious, bright green tangle akin to the dancing limbs of fairy folk. He has even trained orchids to bloom on patches of tree bark or flat pieces of rock with very little soil at all. He will do it again. 

While most of the plants in his greenhouses have gone to seed, there is also much that can be salvaged with prudent pruning and tenderness. He removes his coat and rolls up his sleeves, and even still, he grows moist with sweat in the hot house. Three new gardeners are hired to maintain what he has begun. They dredge out the fountains and connect them once again to water sources. William stands back and crosses his arms over his chest as he watches them sputter to life in the sparkling, June sun. His lips create a satisfied smile. 

It has been some years since he gardened, since he even felt the desire to tend to a plant. Now, with the warm soil under his fingertips, he wonders how he has lived without it. 

He walks for a while to take shelter from the hot glare in the shady lanes of his estate. The branches of a young birch tree bring to mind her nubile arms poking out of her short sleeved gown. Again, he smiles. He will need to go back to the greenhouses for another hour or so today. There is more to which he must tend if he wishes to have a bouquet to present her for her coronation. He looks back toward the hot houses where her roses grow, but he finds his feet are still and his eyes search for the roots of the little birch tree. 

“Victoria,” he says aloud to the ground and his feet. And then he raises his face to the sky and says into the branches and leaves and vast blueness and clouds, “Victoria.” His lips stretch as if they have been asleep for years, and are now, awakened to find themselves delighted by her name.


	4. Light

The windows of Buckingham Palace enthrall her. Never in her life has she lived in such illumination. Even on cloudy days, with curtains parted, there is a sense of brightness and with this brightness, Victoria feels free. For the first months of her residence, she has a habit of visiting random rooms in the palace, throwing the drapes wide, and dancing in a twirl, like a wild top in the middle of the carpet until she is so dizzy she nearly falls.

Her head spins. She feels she flies.

On other days, she finds herself content to nestle in an alcove and sketch with her charcoal. One spring morning, Lehzen tells her it is unfitting of a lady, let alone the Queen, to have dark smudges on her fingertips, but she does not care. She shrugs.

“Dear Lehzen, I shall do as I please, and it pleases me to draw in the window,” she looks back down to her paper and listens to the scratch of her implement as she makes the outline of a tree. Lehzen takes her leave. Victoria smiles at Dash and says, “It pleases Us to draw in Our window.”

Outside there is a pleasant ruckus of horses. Victoria looks out to see men on horseback approach, flanking a dark but recognizable carriage. “Oh, Dash!” She cries. Her dog lifts his head expectantly. “It’s Lord Melbourne. Time for work.” She stands and straightens her gown, pats at her hair, pinches her cheeks. Within moments, she has bound down to greet him. She practically gallops down the long hallway and stops short, breathless before him.

“Ma’am,” he says. He takes her hand and swoops down into an elegant kneeling motion. It still makes her giggle as he brushes his lips against her knuckles. He rises and says, “One would hope her Majesty would not find it quite so amusing when she is greeted as such by other more important members of State. Fortunately her private secretary does not take such things to offense.” The glint in his eye lets her know he is teasing her.

“Certainly. We shall conduct Ourselves with a far more somber level of decorum,” Victoria says. “But We find it difficult to be anything short of joyous when graced by your presence, Lord Melbourne.” She peers up at him. He is much taller than she is. She may be queen but she stands in his shadow as though he is a mighty oak tree.

“Your compliment is most appreciated, Ma’am,” he says with a chuckle of his own that comes from someplace deep within his chest. Victoria cocks her head to absorb the melody of his laughter and finds herself longing to be closer to its source, as though she is following the whisper of a stream toward a rushing river. She imagines herself pressing her ear against his breast to hear his breath and heartbeat. She has never been close to a man before. She has never been embraced by a man before. Her father died when she was an infant. She does not know if he ever held her, if she ever smiled up into his face or felt the vibrations of his laughter deep within his frame as he cradled her close. There was never a shred of physical affection between her and Sir John Conroy. In fact as she considers the warmth in Lord Melbourne’s face, it strikes her she has never before evoked such an expression from any male. She studies his face carefully, the way his eyes crinkle with his smile and create little lines at their edges, almost as though an extension of his already long eyelashes. There is a delicacy to this small part of him that belies the rest of his large and presumably strong physique. She imagines how she would draw it, how her charcoal would barely touch her paper to attempt capturing this detail around his eyes.

But no.

As they walk toward her offices, she catches the glint of his eyes in the light and is reminded of their complexity, their changeability in color and texture like the ocean, except far more green than gray on this particular morning. Charcoal could never approximate such lavish color. This task would necessitate watercolors. She smiles to herself as she sits at her desk to begin work on the boxes, thinking of how she will tackle this painting later, how she will be absorbed by it, much as the paper will absorb her color and water.

“Is there anything terribly urgent today,” she asks.

“Not to my knowledge, Ma’am,” he replies.

“Lovely,” she says and sits to settle into their rhythm of discussing, signing, passing, blotting, piling in an affable rustle of paper. He stands by her right shoulder, as usual, explaining and advising as needed.

“We’ve made short work of this today,” he comments. “You’re remarkably focused and adept, Ma’am.”

“No, Lord M, quite the opposite,” she sighs with a little smile. “I am terrible and selfish. It is so lovely out and I am longing to take a turn in the gardens. You will come with me?”

“If you wish, Ma’am.”

“I do wish, Lord M.”

He smiles and turns his head from her for a moment, then looks back. “Forgive me, Ma’am.”

“Are you laughing at me, Lord M?”

“No, Ma’am. It is just, this thing you call me. Well, it is not altogether customary for queens to give their Prime Minister a pet name.”

“Ah, I see,” she says. “Well, as we established some time ago, I am not accustomed to being customary. And I’ve been queen now for months, and you’ve been my private secretary for months. Are you to tell me just now that you object to me abbreviating your name?”

“No, Ma’am. I do not mind at all,” he says softly. He puts his hands behind his back and rocks on his heels.

“Good! Because I have no intention of stopping calling you whatever pleases me,” she grins and stands from her seat at the desk. “And besides, it does make you smile, I think? To have a pet name, as you call it, from your queen?” She notices the deep flush which rises high on his cheeks when she says this.

He swallows before he says, “You do me great honor with your attention, Ma’am. I did not mean to offend you by bringing it to your attention.”

“Oh, you didn’t. Far from it.” She has a cape and bonnet brought to her to protect her from the sun. Together they walk out into the gardens. “I’m so glad it is warm again. Although winter here was not nearly as oppressive. There is so much more light, even in the darkest time of year. But I do love the spring. Have you a favorite season, Lord M?”

He considers her question carefully prior to answering. “I suppose I favor spring as well, and summer.”

“Yet another thing we share in common then.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I suppose so.” He pauses, then adds, “You do seem cheerful here at Buckingham Palace, Ma’am.”

“I am. So much more so.” They stop and take a seat on a bench by the pond. A pair of swans glide over the mirror-like surface. Victoria sighs, suddenly warm and sleepy as a kitten in the sun. She looks up at his face which is partially shadowed by his hat. He glances down at her and turns his gaze back out over the water. In her lap, her fingers twitch with an urge to reach up and touch the little lines next to his eyes. She forces them to be still.

“Do you study me, Ma’am?” He asks and she turns away, suddenly embarrassed that she has been staring.

“Forgive me, Lord M,” she says.

“I cannot grant forgiveness when there is nothing to forgive, Ma’am,” he says and looks down on her with a smile she might describe as indulgent. She laces her fingers together over her stomach and squeezes them tight to keep them from floating up to stroke his lips.

“Do you know why I love it here at Buckingham?” She asks him suddenly. He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “I feel free. It’s miraculous really. I have space and light and a sense of autonomy the likes of which I have never known. It makes me almost giddy to have so much power.”

“Well, you are the Queen, Ma’am,” he says.

“No, Lord M, it’s more than that.” She stands and paces before him. Her skirts swish. “It’s almost too much. It’s almost impossible to find the words to describe it! To even be here, with you, as your equal, worthy of your trust and appreciation.”

“If I may, Ma’am, while you are utterly worthy of trust and appreciation, we are not equals. You are the Queen.”

She sits again and angles her knees toward him. She speaks almost urgently. “And yet, you have let me make decisions and have been such a friend to me. Such a true friend. Lord M, I’ve never had anyone listen to me with the level of respect which you do. You’ve not attempted to run and rule me as Sir John would have. And you smile at me.”

“Smile at you, Ma’am?”

“Yes! No one has ever smiled at me before. Not really.”

“I find that virtually impossible to comprehend, Ma’am,” he says.

"But it is true," she insists. "Ever since I was small. Mama has always been so overprotective and concerned, I don't think it has ever crossed her mind once to feel a spark of joy. And there is no love lost between myself and Sir John, although I do not believe he has ever smiled once in his entire life for anyone about anything. Even when I went on tour in Europe, I met all manner of people in all manner of places, but none of them seemed particularly interested or intrigued by me. None of them seemed to share any delight in me. Why, my own uncle was so jealous if I ever got any attention at all, I lived in fear he would have me murdered. No, Lord M, prior to coming here, I knew precious little warmth or light or happiness. I was isolated, melancholic. Not anything resembling what you now so aptly describe as 'cheerful.' Have you any idea what that is? What that means to me?"

"While it fills me with regret to hear of your darker days, Ma'am, I do believe I can somehow relate," he says slowly and evenly. "And it is very much my honor to share these brighter times with you, here and now."

“I must sound demented,” she laughs and turns her face up to the sun.

“Not at all, Ma’am,” he says. “To me you have always and will always make perfect sense, and if it is within my power to do so, I shall smile for you every day that I am permitted to serve you.”

She looks into his eyes and finds them aglow in the late afternoon light. Layers of green mingle with flecks of gold. She realizes this is the closest she has ever sat to him.

“Oh, Lord M,” she sighs. “You are good to Us.” They head back up to the palace, through the garden lanes. The sun is beginning to set and it is so bright she is nearly blind as they walk toward it, toward the palace. His words reverberate in her head. 

Her head spins. She feels she flies. 


	5. Flowers, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much to the exceedingly kind readers who have left kudos and comments. . . oh my goodness, you have no idea how much it means to have some feedback when writing a new thing for the first time. I am still working on pinning down their voices and dialogue and such so it is great to hear from you. Many loving hugs and thanks to all of you. xoxoxo, SS.

So engrossed is she in her boxes, she does not notice when he enters her office. He clears his throat and she looks up. He believes that when her face breaks into a smile for him, it is a sight far more radiant than when clouds part to reveal sun on an overcast day. She beams up at him. “Hallo,” she says simply. She rests her pen on her desk and is suddenly still. Her posture is almost slumped over in her chair, not at all the ramrod straight back one would expect of a monarch. 

So charmed is he by her casual greeting and familiar appearance, he choses not to chastise her, even in a playful manner, for being so informal. Indeed, it strikes a momentary terror in a deepest corner of his heart to think he would not have her as such for himself- so soft and still and guileless. There is almost a domesticity to the nature of their relaxed familiarity with one another. He wonders at the confession she had made to him that afternoon in the garden, that she had never made anyone smile. He finds it impossible to believe, because he cannot imagine being incapable of smiling when in her presence. How would it be possible to maintain a stony face while gazing upon the greatest treasure you have ever known? 

“Ma’am,” he says. He takes her hand and kneels as he kisses her. Her sweet, little fingers are tender as stems of flowers. He looks up to find her blue eyes, wide and calm, considering him. 

“Lord M,” she says and straightens as they remind themselves of their roles. “I’m almost finished here,” she says as he rises from his knee.

“Yes,” he agrees. “I can see that. Well done.” 

She signs her name on the last document in her stack and places it forward on her desk. Then she stands with a satisfied smirk. She smooths the front of her dress in a gesture now known well to him, and leaves her hands on her abdomen, above her hips. Her tapered hands are fine and pale against the deep blue of her gown. Like white stones in the bed of a river, they almost sparkle. “We will have time to ride out. I am desperate to escape the confines of my quarters today, Lord M.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. My ladies are annoying me with their constant chatter about the Coronation. It ruins every hand of cards we attempt to play.” She frowns and raises her eyebrow, then leans into him and add, “Just between you and me, I might follow in my predecessor’s footsteps and go mad after all.” 

“We can not have that now, Ma’am,” Lord Melbourne says. “Shall we draft a decree that all who annoy you are sent to the Tower and held there until further notice?” 

She claps her hands and laughs out loud, “You tease me!” She cries. “But I just might take you up on that offer. Just you wait and see.” 

They both look up to the knock at the door. Penge comes in with a small posey of flowers. The arrangement consists of several dozen buds, but in its entirety, it is not much larger than the Queen’s two hands clasped together. “Ma’am, these were delivered for you.”

“Oh, how lovely! Who are they from?”

“There was no card stating whom they were from, only that they were to be delivered to the Her Majesty the Queen directly.” Penge bows his way out. 

Victoria takes the little bouquet, which is cradled in a sleeve of ornate and detailed sterling sliver. She turns it over in her hands, and delightedly admires the craftsmanship of the silver which is far too decadent to be from a random commoner, before turning her full attention to the compact rose buds. The blossoms are palest pink. Some have opened and some are closed tight. 

“It’s utterly charming,” she exclaims. “Lord M, who do you think it could be from?”

“I could not say, Ma’am,” he sighs and bites back the grin that threatens his lips. “But I daresay they have delighted you.”

“Very much so,” she says. She brings the bouquet to her face and inhales. “They are divine,” she whispers into the flowers. The way her lips and breath tickle the petals does not escape him. She considers the bouquet, then looks up at him and says, “Do you know much about flowers, Lord M?”

“A bit, Ma’am.”

“I daresay there is something special about these. They seem somehow rare. I live in this grand house, surrounded by elegant and large bouquets, yet there is something precious about this posey.” She inhales the flowers again. “They are almost like breathing in life itself,” she sighs absently. 

“I am certain whomever gave them to you would be pleased and honored to know you like them, Ma’am,” he says. “Shall I call down to the stables and have them ready our horses?” 

“Yes. Please do, Lord M. I will go up and change into my riding costume.”

“Very well, Ma’am,” he says and bows low as she leaves the room, the bouquet clutched in her hand against her heart. As he watches her float down the long hallway toward her rooms, he sees her lift it once again to her face. It is almost as though he can feel the warmth of her lips and breath as they grace the blossoms.


	6. Refreshment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is much longer than the other ones I've written so far... I do hope that you enjoy it. Their voices are finally starting to rain and reign in my head and writing this chapter was very enjoyable and sort of took on a life of its own. Again, thank you all so so so much for the comments. You have no clue how much they mean to me.
> 
> PS... did someone mention they love Lord M's dismounts? Hmmmm. . .

Hard and fast, they ride in the mid-day sun. Victoria out paces Lord Melbourne on several occasions, pushing both herself and her horse to the limit. She finds herself completely out of his sight, at one point, and slows her horse to allow him to catch up to her. They have brought no companions or chaperones with them on this day, much to the chagrin of Victoria’s jaw-clenching Mama. Victoria finds herself completely alone, but for her horse and the chatter of whatever birds and creatures inhabit the forest. She wonders if a wiser woman would be scared. After all, there is a well documented history of royalty being accosted while out and about, and certainly as a woman, she is more vulnerable on her own. Merely considering the notion makes her laugh, and her laughter pierces the inhuman silence all around her.

It is strange. She is so infrequently alone. Being Queen seldom affords a moment’s privacy. For reasons unbeknownst her, she shivers, even in the heated afternoon. Again she wonders if she should feel scared, but as her horse meanders through the woods, Victoria finds she does not mind the sensation of being alone. She is neither frightened, nor is she lonely, but she realizes it is only because she knows Lord M is near enough to her, and will be with her again before long.

“You’re in rare form today, Ma’am,” he says when he finally catches up to her. “I was beginning to wonder if I had lost you all together.”

“I told you I was restless,” she adjusts herself in her saddle. “I do believe men should attempt to ride side saddle sometime. It must be at least twice as difficult as the way you sit astride your horses.”

“You may have a point there,” Lord Melbourne agrees.

“As you may have noticed by now, Lord M, I usually do,” Victoria says.

“You do indeed!” He laughs with a merry smile. “Would you like to take a break? I’m sure your horse could use some water from the stream up ahead after that run you just gave him.”

Victoria agrees to the suggestion. Lord M practically leaps from his horse in an eager dismount, so he can rush over to assist her from her saddle. She puts her hands on his shoulders and he catches her around her waist to guide her safely down to the ground. “I’m afraid my dismount is not nearly as athletic or graceful as yours is,” Victoria says, her hands still on his shoulders. While he has helped her from her horse before, she has never noted fully just how strong his arms feel beneath the layers of his clothing.

“Your every undertaking is performed with unsurpassable elegance, Ma’am,” he replies. She catches the depth of his voice in his chest and finds it soothing. She wants to lean in even closer to him and stand with the full front of her body pressed up to his. She wants to feel his arms come around her and hold her close and tight, so tight that perhaps she might even bruise with the force of his embrace.

Victoria suddenly recalls a rainy afternoon in Kensington Palace, shortly after she had turned sixteen. Never one to obey the boundaries of the house, she had wandered down to the kitchen for a bit of tea and toast to take by the fire. Mama would have been aghast to find her regal daughter in the kitchen, but it was a place of mystery that had long fascinated Alexandrina, as she was then known. She loved the warmth and smells and commotion inherent to the place. She loved the dust of flour and the chaos of feathers. Everything to that point in her life had been so straight laced and tidy; there was something amazing to her in the mess and strewn-about nature of this place where her meals were prepared.

When she was a child, and even as a teen, she would sneak there as often as she could. She was so gracious and patient with the staff in that noisy, heated place, that they indulged her visits. They never told on her, although Lehzen would scold her, but softly. But there was one day, the day she craved a tea and toast, when she found the kitchen strangely vacant, but for a couple of scullery girls who sat at the end of a bench, bent over something and tittering like a couple of sparrows.

“Can you read it?” One of them had asked in a hushed voice.

“Nah, but ya don’t need to. Look at the pictures!” The other one replied and they both gasped.

Drina had approached them and asked what they were looking at. Startled, they jumped and they tried to hide it in their skirts and then behind their backs. So desperate were they to keep it from their mistress, they hurled it at the fireplace, but missed. With a peevish roll of her eyes, Alexandrina had picked up their contraband, which happened to be a book.

“‘Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure,’” she had said, slowly. “By John Cleland. But why are you so keen to hide a book from me?” Upon opening the book, she gasped, and realized at once their urgency. “Oh. Oh my,” she had hissed. She had cleared her throat and stood up as tall as she possibly could, then said. “I will take and destroy this elicit material.” She had turned on her heel and left the kitchen.

She remembers this now, because she feels the same sense of swollen confusion with her hands on Lord Melbourne’s shoulders as she had when she flipped through the pages of Cleland’s corruptible manuscript, alone, late at night by the light of a single candle. At the sound of footsteps in the hall, she had plunged it deep into the embers of her fire, but not before she saw a rather suggestive etching of a man and a woman, barely wearing anything at all and clutching at one another as though in half mad desperation.

“Will you take some refreshment?” Lord M asks. He’s taken his hands from her waist, and she feels a sudden chill, even in the June sun. His words startle her back from her memories.

“Please,” Victoria says, returning to the present moment and lowering her hands. Lord M secures their horses by the river where they can both drink and munch some sweet grass. He procures a rolled up carpet and parcel from the back of his saddle. He spreads the carpet on a soft area by the bank, in the shade of the forest. She plucks her riding bonnet from her head and tosses it onto the ground, then practically throws herself onto the carpet and curls her legs under her. “Oh, I am tired,” she exhales.

“You did ride hard, Ma’am,” Lord M says. He opens the parcel.

“Oh, it isn’t just the ride, Lord M. I suppose I haven’t slept well these past weeks.” She takes the glass he offers her and waits patiently enough as he wrestles with the cork on the bottle of cordial that has been packed for them. He pours a bright, red stream of wine into her glass. She waits for him to fill his own glass and then they both raise their glasses to their lips. “Mmm, strawberry. Do you like strawberry, Lord M?”

“It is very nice, Ma’am.”

“But not your favorite.”

“Not particularly. It is a bit sweet for me, Ma’am.”

“Well, what do you like?” She drains the rest of her cordial and finds herself emboldened by the liquor. He smiles and blinks at the trees several times before answering.

“I suppose I enjoy a nice brandy at times. And Madeira.”

“I’ve never tasted brandy,” the Queen says. “Do you think I would like it?”

“I couldn’t say, Ma’am. It is quite different from strawberry cordial.”

“We shall have to share some together, someday, Lord M.” She declares this and stretches out her glass to be refilled by him. He obliges her and then searches the satchel for whatever else is packed there. He discovers some bread and hard cheese, as well as some meats and a bunch of plump grapes. He extracts a plate from the bag, onto which he spreads the modest arrangement of foods.

“I suppose had we brought some staff or some of your ladies, they could have arranged this far prettier than I have,” he says with a sideways smile.

“Nonsense,” Victoria is quick to respond. “You’ve done most admirably. And had I brought along my ladies I’d be savagely annoyed by their gossip by now. I would not be enjoying myself nearly as much as I am.”

“Has there been ill feelings among your ladies, Ma’am,” Lord M asks with a thread of genuine concern in his voice.

“Not at all,” Victoria sighs. She pinches a particularly fat grape off of its stem and puts it into her mouth, chews it, spits the seeds out with gusto and smile at him. “It is all this Coronation drama,” she says. “They live for it and I find it is practically killing me. They have me so agitated over my dress and my dance card as well as their own roles that I can barely sleep or eat.”

“It is a queen’s duty, I’m afraid.”

“How did I know you would say that?” She says, almost peevishly. “Can I tell you something, Lord M? Something rather scandalous?”

“You can tell me anything at all, Ma’am.”

“I plan to banish Sir John from my sight. He will not be invited to my Coronation.”

Lord M contemplates this information for a moment before he says, “Are you certain that is wise, Ma’am?”

“Wise? What do I care if it is wise or not. I do not want him near me and I want him near my mother even less. He is a vile human.”

“It might not do well to provoke him at this delicate time in your reign. As it is he is harmless, but to make an enemy of him could prove unwise.”

“Hmph! How did I also know you would say that?” Victoria huffs.

“Am I so predictable, Ma’am?” He smiles at her.

“You’d be wise not to provoke Us with teases, Lord M. Fatigue does not make Us particularly indulgent.” She uses the royal Us with a sardonic twist of her lips.

“I would never dream of doing such a thing,” he replies. His tone is sincere and his eyes sparkle at her. Even if she is not feeling _particularly indulgent_ , he seems to be. He finds there is no knife, but he is able to break off a few pieces of the meat and cheese. He puts some together with a bite of the bread and hands it to Victoria. “I know it is not easy, Ma’am.”

“Do you?”

“I know as much as I can know. And I know as much as you tell me.” He bites into some meat. Victoria watches his jaw work.

“I don’t believe you could know, Lord M,” she sighs and leans back. He has refilled her glass and she sips repeatedly. Her tongue is loosened by fatigue and wine, and she continues, “It is so different for men.”

“How do you mean, Ma’am?”

“No one bothers you about how you dress or about your dance card. No one makes a huge fuss over your marriage. There is not the same expectation and pressure!”

“I’m not sure that is entirely true,” he says.

“Of course it is!” She insists. “Look at you. You’ve never married again and no one bothers you about it.” There is a pregnant pause during which she sips her cordial and he looks over to the horses who drink contentedly at the river. “Do they?” She asks in a smaller voice.

“No,” he says. “I suppose not.”

Victoria rolls over onto her stomach and rests her head on her arms. “Lord M, why have you never married again?”

“Oh, Ma’am,” he starts and his voice drifts off on the same breeze that rustles Victoria’s hair so she is forced to brush a lock of it off of her face. He bends a knee up, around which he wraps an arm. She watches his eyes shift over the landscape in an uncomfortable dance. “It just has not occurred for me.”

“Do you find yourself lonely?”

“I rather assume most human beings find themselves lonely at one time or another,” he says.

“Now, Lord M. Do not give me pat answers. Be truthful with me. Be blunt. You know I desire it.”

“Yes, I do know that,” he glances down at her and smiles sadly. “It is a sensitive topic, and one that does not arise often, or naturally.”

“Oh,” she says and feels a flush rise to her cheeks. “I apologize for having pried into your personal matters.”

“Think nothing of it, Ma’am.”

“But you see, I do think of it,” she persists. “In a manner, it hardly seems fair.”

“Fair?”

“Mmmh, yes. You know so much about me. Why you’ve known me since I was a child and you knew my uncle before I was even born. I confide in you more than I’ve ever confided in any other, and there are times I feel I barely know you. You assist and support me in matters great and small, and yet I can hardly say what makes you glad or sad. You must understand I’d be curious.”

“You must not allow that to vex you, Ma’am. It is my job to know and serve you. I am not deserving of your curiosity. Truthfully, you’d probably find me a very stodgy, old man. You are under no obligation to say what makes me glad or sad, but I can tell you it makes me very glad to serve you.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. Very glad indeed.”

She smiles up at him. “In that case, I entreat you to feed me a piece of cheese.” He looks down to their spread of food and picks up a small piece of cheese. He holds it up before her and she gives a nod before parting her lips. For a moment he looks at her in confusion, but she stares at him, mouth agape, waiting for him to feed her the cheese. At last he expels a silent laugh and lowers his hand to her mouth. She takes the morsel between her front teeth, and he is about to move away, but at the last moment, she closes her mouth so her lips catch on the tips of his thumb and forefinger. In an instant that seems to last so much longer, she covers his fingers with the wet warmth of her lips so he must drag his fingers from her. As much as she can grin around her little mouthful of cheese, she does. “I expect you will tell me it is not typical for the Prime Minister to hand feed his Queen.” She rolls her head around on her arms. Where this sudden burst of brazen behavior has come from, she cannot say, but she is enjoying it immensely.

He regards her with a look somewhere betwixt adoration and shock. At last, he says, “Would you like anything else?”

“The grapes are juicy, but they have seeds. Are there any other fruits in the basket?” She inquires. He plunges his hand in and comes out with an apple. Its crimson skin glistens in the sun. “Ahh, perfection. Start it for me, will you?”

“There is no knife for me to cut it for you, Ma’am?” He says as he turns the fruit in his hand. She finds herself envying the apple for how it rests so easily in his large palm.

“I do not like to bite into an apple with my front teeth. There. There is yet another of my little quirks which you now know. Bite into it for me, won’t you?” She peeks up to find he is blushing, but whether from her impertinence or from the sun, she knows not. She is relieved when he brings the apple to his mouth at last, bears his teeth and bites down into it with a mighty crunch. The first bite, he chews himself, and swallows with a smile and nod, as though acknowledging the goodness of the fruit. Victoria finds her mouth waters as it hangs open in longing for the fruit which drips with juice in his hand. But he does not lower it to her. He brings the apple to his own mouth again, but this time, he bites off a rather large piece and takes it in his fingers. He brings it down and she makes to grab at it with her own hand, but he lifts it just out of her reach with a little gasp. She frowns, but then understands what he wants. She props herself up on her elbows, as he lowers himself down closer to her, and opens her mouth for him to insert the bite of apple.

As his fingers enter her cavern of mouth, she darts at them with her tongue and gives them a nip with her teeth as he tries to remove them. The luscious tang of fresh apple, both sweet and just slightly tart, floods her taste buds, and underneath all of that, there is the subtle salt of his flesh.

His eyes have trapped her and she is lost in the dappled green of their forest. They stare at one another as she chews.

“I am lost,” she whispers.

“Not at all, Ma’am. I know the way back very well.” His voice is a quiet rumble the breath of which she feels on her face.

“Do you?” She murmurs.

“Yes,” he says. “The Palace is not more than a couple hours’ ride off in that direction,” he jerks his head back to indicate the direction from whence they came.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says. She cannot tear herself from his gaze. She cannot even blink. “Your eyes, they beguile me quite. I feel as though I travel deeper and deeper into a land to which I’ve never been.”

Lord M reaches up to touch her sun kissed face. His fingertips barely graze the down of her skin and he draws them back, hastily, almost as though he has been stung. He blinks and looks away. The spell is broken. He moves away from her and sits up straight again. The distance between them renders Victoria bereft. She realizes with a sudden assuredness that in his eyes she had not been lost. She had been found. And now he is far away from her and she feels so very alone.

“Ma’am,” he says at last, and his voice comes as a balm to her forlorn heart. “I believe you do know me, perhaps better than anyone. You may not know every detail of my mundane days, but I believe you know my character, what one might call my soul? If I may be so bold as to say that knowing someone is more than just being able to chart their particular motions. It is a feeling, a sense of sorts that perhaps cannot even be named. Do you. . . could you ever believe such a thing?”

She sits up and puts her hand on top of his, where it rests on the carpet. “Yes,” she finds she is almost unable to whisper. “I do. I can.” She rubs her fingers over his knuckles. He is so warm.

“May I say something else, Ma’am?”

“You can tell me anything,” her throat is spectacularly dry for all the juice of the apple that has just so recently coated it.

“Since coming to serve you, I have suffered less, and been far less lonesome than in the longest time. I owe you a monumental debt. If there is anything within my power to do for you, you need only ask. It will be done.”

“There is a favor I shall ask of you, Lord M.”

“Name it.”

“Will you dance with me at my Coronation? Perhaps even more than once?”

“It will be my greatest honor, Ma’am.”

She squeezes his fingers. “Thank you. Thank you, Lord M.” She closes her eyes, for suddenly, his gaze and the sun and the sparkling river and the emerald moss and grass and forest are all too much for her. “Oh, I am sleepy,” she sighs.

“Rest your head, then,” he suggests gently.

“I don’t suppose it is proper and royal for a queen to be caught snoozing in the middle of the day, alone out in the forest with her Prime Minister,” Victoria says as she lies back on the rug.

“I’ll never tell a soul,” he chuckles softly.

“What if someone comes upon us?” Her eyes are already shut.

“I will watch over you, Ma’am.”

“Will you?” She asks. Her voice is drowsy. She opens her eyes to see him sitting next to her.

“Always,” he says. She drifts closer to sleep, and as she does, she imagines what it will be like to feel his arms hold her as they dance at her Coronation. Maybe it won’t be so terrible after all. She smiles as a velvety cloak sweeps over her consciousness. She succumbs to the spell of sleep repeating this word in her mind,  _Always, always, always._


	7. Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you think I wasn't going to give you a chapter of our darling Lord M watching his Queen snooze and getting all introspective, did you? Noooo, I would not deprive you all in such a cruel manner. 
> 
> Actually, I hope you like this chapter. It got a little out of hand. I hope the introspection isn't too much. . .

As promised, he watches over her as she sleeps.

He finds it is not a difficult promise to keep.

In fact, nothing could be more simple than following the steady rise and fall of her shoulders.

In fact, he finds he can barely tear his eyes away from her. It is unseemly how he stares, and he knows it, but he cannot keep his gaze from the form of his Queen, so delicately curled next to him.

To say she is small. . .

It does her no justice.

The vulnerability of repose lends her even greater daintiness (he snorts internally at the contradiction in his mental turn of phrase). He feels like a giant sitting next to some sort of fairy. Indeed, there is an almost magical wildness about her with her hair free of its hat and flowing around her face. She could wake at any moment and flitter off to a tiny cottage made of moss and twigs. The thought, even in its fantastical nature, fills him with fear- that she could so easily slip away from him.

“Where are your wings then, Fairy Queen,” he murmurs, half dazed. He dares bring his hand to brush a tendril from her cheek and in doing so, his fingers graze her neck, just above the lacy collar of her blouse. She shivers and stirs from his touch and he pulls his hand back instantly, suddenly gripped with a fear she should wake and discover him being so indiscreet. But as he holds his breath in suspense, she smiles sweetly in her sleep and nestles her cheek against her arm. He exhales in relief.

The sun has gone behind clouds and he wonders if his slender fairy child is cold. Not wanting her to catch a chill, he removes his own jacket and uses it to cover her. She is so tiny, curled as she is on her side like a kitten, that his coat nearly blankets her entirely. His Little Queen, he thinks and then is furious with himself for echoing the sentiments of all those fools who do not know her at all.

He reflects on their conversation and realizes, yet again, her thoughts are not those of a little mind. Not at all. Her thoughts are large and wise and at times almost brazen. He does not understand how others can find her small, let alone small minded. To him, she is and has always been larger than life.

He thinks of the stars in the sky at night. Indeed she dazzles him like a celestial body glittering from afar. But more so, he thinks of how small the stars seem from his fixed position on the earth, and how he has heard that they are so very far away that they are in fact, enormously huge, bigger even than the whole of England. Victoria is like this, he realizes. From afar she may appear to be a tiny, sparkling diamond, but up close. . . oh. . .

“‘ _Though she be but little, she is fierce_ ,’” he whispers with a smile.

He tries to command himself to find reason, but his fingers obey a different law as they reach again toward her flesh. Her hand is partially curled, with her palm up, an empty shell, upon the carpet. As though commanded by a spell, he slips two of his own rough and ruddy fingers onto the rosy bed of her palm. There is a level of him that is aware of the risk he takes, and yet much of him is subdued by whatever enchantment has befallen him there in the woods. He barely touches her, and yet the sensation of her skin against the pads of his fingertips floods his entire being. He is immediately and almost uncomfortably aroused. With a gulp of distress and horror, he makes to withdraw his hand and move away, but before he can, her fingers close upon his.

Guilt descends on his shoulders with crushing force.

He is not a good man. It could be said he is not even a noble man, though he moves among the noble class. He has softened the edges of his world with a most lascivious manner of choice- quantities of brandy that could fill the hulls of Navy vessels, and pleasures of the flesh most would find irrational and lewd. He is not worthy of this innocent touch. He is not worthy of this Queen.

Shame slices through his gut like a whip.

Reflecting on his litany of sin, he begs the distention in his breeches to subside. But the cognitive dissonance of guilt and shame rubbing raw against the sweetness and perfection upon which he gazes only seems to feed the infernal fire raging in him. Beads of sweat form on his brow. Thoughts swirl in his head until he is almost dizzy; thoughts which are tantamount to treason because they could upend the entire monarchy and divorce his head from his body most certainly.

Since becoming the Prime Minister and Private Secretary to Her Majesty, he has told himself he is different. He is not the same man who rode an unmarked carriage down dark alleyways in search of rare and willing flesh to abuse. He is not the same man who cuckolded other Lords with their Ladies in their own beds. He is different now. Victoria has made him better, has elevated him far above his base desires.

Yet, there he sits, dripping and aching beneath the material of his clothing, longing to dash off behind a tree and take matters into his own hand.

Not that it would make a whit of difference. Relief would last but a moment. 

Caroline was the only woman who ever truly satisfied him, and only because her lusty needs were equally as unnatural as his. The things they did could have landed them both in prison, or at least on trial for decency had they ever been caught. And they probably would have been caught eventually, for one of their decadent delights was to bring one another off in public places. Each time they would be bolder and more indiscreet. Caroline was willing to try anything and everything- even things that only foreign girls in the secret nunneries would do. Even as he knew it was wrong, and even as it gutted him with its corruption, he could only desire more. They did not get caught because she ran off with the poet, leaving him with their poor sickly babe.

Is it any wonder God above saw fit to take his little one back from him after the licentious manner in which he had behaved? He blamed himself for all of it; for not being a better man, for not being stronger or more sane in the face of temptation. And now. And here.

“I will be better,” he whispers. Tears sting his eyes. “I will be better, for you, Victoria.”

He looks up into the trees. Layers of leaves sway and there is an omnipresent chatter of birds. A lone crow reveals itself and bounces from branch to branch prior to tilting its head back and uttering a series of piercing ca-caws. Upon seeing the crow, its feathers gleaming ebony, Lord Melbourne slips his fingers easily from Victoria’s grasp. He sighs most mournfully, feeling no longer aroused or guilty or ashamed. Leaves flutter down through the dappled sunlight like locks of hair. His torment now is of a different nature, but equally as acute. With a rueful breath, he regards the Queen’s cheek, so soft and tender and warm as a succulent peach. And while there is still a part of him that would like to dip his head and take a bite, he forces himself to turn away, even to stand.

Down to the horses he walks. He touches their necks and presses his forehead against his own horse, feeling the life and warmth. It grounds him somewhat. He finds a spot at the river where the water rushes cold and clear through layers of rocks, and he kneels to splash some on his face and neck. It does him good. It cools him. He cups his hand and scoops up the fresh water to drink then rinses his hands in the frigid stream.

Still he burns.

He looks over his shoulder and sees her sleeping, and he wonders of what a fairy might dream. It does stroke his pride to know she has been able to rest her weary head and find respite from the bustle and tensions of Palace life while in his care on this afternoon. She has felt safe with him. This is something. A step on the road toward redemption.

He finds a seat on a rock not far from the river, but still in view of Victoria. For a while he tosses stones into the water. He is looking off in the distance at the rings he is creating with his stones on the water, when he hears her voice, “I believe this belongs to you,” she says. He looks up to find her standing before him, clutching his jacket to her chest. She lowers her face to its cloth and seems to nuzzle it before extending her arm toward him.

“Ah, so it does,” he says. “I trust you rested peacefully, Ma’am.”

“Indeed, Lord M. I feel very much renewed. I apologize if you have been terribly bored.”

“Not at all. It has been an afternoon of relaxation and the splendor of a natural seclusion is never boring to me,” he answers truthfully. He has stood and he reaches for his coat which she seems to hold in her own grip for just a moment longer.

“This is a splendid place we have found, is it not? It has seemed almost magical,” she says.

“I could not agree more, Ma’am,” he says. Her fingers have found his beneath the material of the coat. They seem to ignore that they are touching one another, as they do not acknowledge it in any way, and their almost imperceptible actions are obscured by his jacket. Yet, the entire time they are touching beneath the fabric, just their fingertips, and just ever so lightly, she is staring him, her eyes wide and round, but the rest of her face smooth and unreadable. Fearing his face will not maintain such poise and will betray him at any moment, he breaks their gaze and looks away. As he turns his head, his coat slips from their hands. As the garment drifts to the forest floor, Victoria manages to weave her fingers into his. He looks from the fallen jacket to their hands, fully clasped together now, between them. He swallows and blinks, unable to raise his face to look at her.

“Lord M?”

“Mmmh? Yes, Ma’am,” he says with his eyes still lowered.

“Do I look horribly frightful after my rest?” She asks, ostensibly forcing him to look up at her.

“You look bright and refreshed, Ma’am,” he murmurs. Her fingers which had seemed so spritely in her sleep, suddenly feel very solid and surprisingly strong. Despite the strength with which they grip him, he recognizes the sensation of fear that she will disappear. He does not want that. He does not want that at all.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re most welcome.”

“Lord M?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“I. . . I feel a precious kinship with you, just now. Here.”

“Your words humble me, Ma’am,” he barely breathes.

“I do not wish to humble you. I wish for you to know my truth.”

“I believe you are always truthful, Ma’am, sometimes almost to a fault. It is an admirable quality.” He can barely focus for the way her thumb is rubbing nervously over his knuckles.

“I wish. . . that is, I . . . well,” she stutters and her face flickers with confusion. She seems to gather herself and then continues, “Tell me we will return to this place. Tell me we will return here often, now that we know of its existence.”

“As you wish,” he nods his head.

“But only us. No one else. I don’t want to share it.”

“Very well, Ma’am,” he agrees. “But now it is getting late and I will need to return you to the Palace so you will not be missed at dinner.”

“Ever the pragmatist! All right then. If we must return. . . but I feel as though this respite has given me a bit of strength to endure Emma and Harriet’s Coronation chatter for at least a few hours of cards tonight.” She squeezes his hand and then lets them go. She walks up to gather her hat and he follows her to pack up the rest of their afternoon so they can return to the Palace. They ride back at a much slower pace than the one at which they had set out. “You will dine with us tonight, Lord M?”

“If it pleases you,” he replies.

“I can think of nothing that would please me better,” she says, but her voice lacks the playful and jovial ring it had had all afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will we find out why Victoria has become somewhat glum? Stay tuned!! 
> 
> History has it that Melbourne was an extremely lusty dude, and there are rumors (documented by actual factual historians) that he did enjoy spanking sessions with the ladies. In this chapter I took some liberties with this detail, and with his problematic marriage to Caroline. This is after all a work of fiction, and while there are many amazing historical fic pieces out there, this is not one of them. I am more interested in the dynamics b/w V and M than in history here, although I have tried to approximate some basic accuracy. Thank you for your indulgence. 
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and your comments are fueling my Vicbourne FIRE!!! I'm working up to some very angsty and heated stuff... so if you feel like leaving a little comment, it would be most appreciated and inspiring and motivating and all the Vicbourne things!!! You guys are so amazingly wonderful... have I mentioned that? xoxoxo.


	8. Nocturne No. 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although not necessary, it is highly recommended to partake of Chopin's Nocturne No. 8 in D-Flat Major as you read this chapter. . . Let me know if you do not agree...

She does not want to change for supper. Even after their long ride home, she can still catch drifts of him on her skin from where his coat had covered her. It is a rich, manly smell of clean sweat, leather, and perhaps a sandalwood shaving soap. Almost frantically, she twists her hair around to her face to capture his earthy musk. When she cannot find it, she grows frustrated. She paces as Skerrett prepares her gown for dinner but for some strange reason, there is a chafing between her legs that burns almost unbearably. She throws herself into a chair and waits for Skerrett to come and fix her hair.

“Ma’am, a bunch of fresh flowers were left for you,” Skerrett says. “Would you like me to weave some into your hair tonight? Or perhaps you could wear them on your dress? They are quite beautiful.”

“Let me see,” she orders. The exotic blooms that have been left are a rich shade of red and compliment the silver gown she has chosen for the evening perfectly. “Yes, please Skerrett, that will be a nice touch.” She brings the blossoms to her face and takes in the light, floral fragrance. It is a most welcome distraction from her obsessive search for Lord M’s scent on her own skin. 

But still, she finds herself agitated, restless. 

The sensation troubles her for days after her ride with Lord M. She finds it difficult to focus on her dispatches, and it takes nearly twice as long to accomplish what she has trained herself already to do with swift agility. 

“Are you quite well, Drina?” Her mother asks. “Perhaps you have taken too much sun and made yourself ill while you were out on your particularly long ride with Lord Melbourne.”

“Hush, Mama. I am perfectly fine,” Victoria snaps. 

“You must not let him tax you. He has already become too familiar with you. It is uncommon for a prime minister to spend so much time at court. And how he insists on kissing your hand each and every time he comes to greet you. People will talk. Indeed, I fear they are talking already.”

“Mama, We have had enough of this. Lord M is my private secretary in addition to being my prime minister, and it completely natural and expected he should be here as much as I want him to be here. You and Sir John just don’t like that I am in a position now to make my own friends, and that Lord M empowers me to do so!”

“So irritable and defensive you’ve grown these days, Drina. I do believe you to be tired. You should take to your bed with some tea. You mustn’t make yourself ill right before your coronation.” Her mother says.

“Your mother is right,” Lady Flora chimes in. “A coronation is an exhausting process. You will want to be fresh.”

“I am perfectly fresh, thank you very much. And what I want is for people to cease in their unsolicited advice.” She sends them away and finds her own way to her music salon. 

For some time she plays piano, and tries to lose herself in the complicated twists and turns of Mozart’s Turkish March. Her fingers take on lives of their own as they fly over the ivory keys. She bites her lip and crinkles her nose in concentration. She plays the piece three times over, just a little bit faster each time. When she finishes the final time, she feels almost separated from her body. 

“Very well played, Ma’am.” 

The familiar warmth of his voice behind her brings her back into herself with a jolt. She turns around on the piano bench. “Why Lord M, I wasn’t expecting you today. I’ve already had at the dispatches. What brings you to the Palace?”

He approaches her and she moves over on the bench to allow him a seat, which he takes. “Lady Portman sent word that you have been rather glum these past days. I thought I would check in with you, see if anything was the matter. If there are matters of state bothering you, I could perhaps assist you. . . offer some advice?” 

“Hmph,” she huffs and turns back around to the piano. “Seems all anyone wants to do is give me advice these days.”

“I don’t mean to impose Ma’am. I will go.”

“No no! I am sorry to be surly with you. I’ve just had a go with Mama and Lady Flora and I’m not quite myself. I did not mean to snap at you. Please stay.”

“Very well, Ma’am.”

“Do you play, Lord M?”

“No. I do not, though I am sorry to admit it.” 

Victoria shuffles through her pages of music until she finds the piece she looks for. But she does not even need the sheet music, as she had already committed Chopin’s Nocturne No. 8, in D-Flat Major, to her deepest memory. She plays with her eyes closed and as she sways slightly, she feels her arms brush against Lord Melbourne, who maintains his seat on the bench beside her. 

The melody sweeps around them, rising and receding until it seems to embrace them in a coil of abundant sentiment. This song she plays slowly, liltingly. This song she allows to move through her, allows it to build and grow until she feels suspended within each and every chord and note. She leans to her right to feel that Lord Melbourne is still there and attempts to carry him with her as she plays, sweeter and deeper, longing to have him and only him beyond the grim grip of reality here in the Palace, with her, floating, above society and impossibility, above and beyond it all. 

The final trills and chords of the song play out through her fingertips. As she reaches to strike the final note, she again grazes him, but this time, she feels his hand close gently around her forearm. Her eyes still closed, she absorbs the warmth of his skin against her skin. Her breath has sped up and she can hear her heart beat in her ears. At last she opens her eyes to find him regarding her with a strange sort of wonder. He caresses the delicate skin of her wrist and for a moment, she thinks perhaps he will hold her hand. He is so close, she can feel his breath on her face. 

A sudden clatter and the following noise of Penge and Brodie arguing in the hallway, cause Victoria and Melbourne to jump apart from one another. 

“Ma’am, I apologize. I quite forgot myself.”

“On the contrary, Lord M, I believe you quite remembered yourself,” Victoria murmurs. The chafed sensation has returned between her legs and there is a heaviness in her abdomen she cannot name. 

“It is just your playing, well, it is remarkable.”

“You enjoyed it then?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I was very moved. You have stunning talent.” He swallows and she watches his throat clench beneath his cravat. Victoria has an urge to spring forward and lap at his neck like a cat, but she folds her hands in her lap and inhales deeply instead. She breathes him in, trying to memorize every detail of his scent. He smells elemental, like wind and fire. The noises in the hallway subside and she moves closer again to Melbourne. 

“So close,” she whispers and feels her thigh press against his. 

“Ma’am,” he sighs in a tone that sounds almost warning. She opens her eyes to look at him. His eyes are there, jade and familiar as ever. 

“Don’t. Move.” She commands. He blinks as though he is uncomfortable, but he does not move. “Do you feel it?” She asks. 

“Feel what, Ma’am?” He says softly. He is trailing up the inside of her arm with a single finger. Up and down, up and down. 

“Us,” she exhales. She brings her hand to his cheek. He looks almost pained, but he closes his eyes and leans against her hand. “Do you feel us, Lord M? You and me. Us.”

“Ma’am, I don’t- ” he begins, but she interrupts him.

“Call me by my name,” she whispers. 

“I can’t,” he says. 

“Please. Please. Give me my name!” She strokes her fingers through his hair and touches the tip of his ear. “Say it.” 

He closes his eyes and utters, “Victoria. Queen Victoria. My Queen.” When he opens his eyes he smiles sadly at her. She shivers. 

“You were the first to name me. Do you remember?”

“At the Privy Council. Yes,” he mutters. His eyes roll back in his head as she touches the little area next to his temple with her thumb. His skin is surprisingly soft. 

“Do you feel us, William?” She asks again, this time dispensing with the formality of his title. 

“Yes, Victoria. Yes, I feel us.”

“Whatever are we to do?” She says, and searches his face. He takes her hand away and places it back in her lap. 

“We are to keep you safe and free of scandal, Ma’am.” He stands and it feels as though her own skin is being torn from her. 

“And what if that is not what I want?” Victoria whimpers. 

“You must want what is best for your kingdom, Ma’am,” he says. He seems to say it through gritted teeth. “You must smile and act the part, even when your heart is aching.”

“I must smile?” She questions savagely. She stands and rushes at him. “I must smile? How dare you men always tell women to smile. It is such a ludicrous double standard.” 

“And yet it is the way of society, Ma’am. It may be frustrating but it is the system we have.” He says with a shrug of his shoulders. “If my assistance is no longer needed here at Buckingham, I will return to Parliament where I believe I will be needed for a vote. Thank you for such a moving concert. It will be remembered as long as there is breath in my body.” He kneels and kisses her hand. It is the system they have. 

The system they have has left Victoria sobbing over her piano, and throbbing throughout her entire body for something she fears she can never have, as Melbourne strides down the great corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday to all of my lovelies. I am so happy you are all here. . . please feel free to comment and let me know what you think of this progression. I have a very vague plot, but I'm also sort of flying by the seat of my pants. Wheeeeeee!!! I love love love hearing from you all. xoxoxo!!!


	9. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord M broods. . . old habits are hard to break. Will he be able to maintain his vow to be better for his Queen?

Darkness falls. It always does. 

At Summer Solstice it is as light as it ever will be, but darkness falls all the same.

For Melbourne, the brightest time of year approaches with utmost murk. In the days leading up to the Coronation, he avoids Buckingham Palace, making appearances only when duty calls. Even in his gloom and avoidance, it does not escape him that Victoria has not summoned him nearly as frequently as she did several weeks prior. 

He drags the box from its drawer. 

He sloshes the drink into his cup. 

He falls asleep over his desk and wakes, his head thick and muzzy with regret. 

He performs his machinations at the House of Parliament with as much dignity as he can muster.

He returns to his city home, to his box and drink and cup and desk. He sits in his seat as darkness falls, as it always does. 

Temptation suggests he order his unmarked carriage to be readied for a ride through the dark streets. Restless hunger gnaws within him. Or perhaps he could take the girl who is now down in the kitchen, sweeping his hearth, into one of the back rooms. She looks so young. Surely he could frighten her into submission and silence. Or better yet, he could offer her coin to let him have a go at her. Certainly she would have some family who would be most grateful for a mysteriously large sum of money, in exchange for his bruising her bottom with a wooden spoon. He’s done it before; not with that particular girl, but with other ones who have come into his home on the pretense of cleaning it, only to become filthy themselves. He can practically feel the relief it would bring. One hand on her back, pushing her down over the scullery counter (he wouldn’t even bother to bring her into a bedroom), the other hand greased with whatever has been available- butter, goose fat, his own spittle (it matters so little so long as it is soft and slick, after all) - on his prick, milking himself until he releases long, white streams onto her arse. 

He growls and rolls his head against the back of the chair imaging it, imagining how he would smack her rump and turn away to button himself up. Then he would walk off, feeling a lightness between his legs. 

But as he imagines this, the lightness he feels in his fantasy lasts but a moment before darkness descends upon him. 

As it always does. 

He sloshes the drink into his cup. His hand rests on top of the small box. As he strokes the smooth wood, his eyes are caught on the miniature of Caro and Augustus. 

“I cannot,” he mutters. 

He had promised to be better. 

He raises the glass to his lips, but it is of no use. Nothing has been able to rinse the decadence of her name from his mouth since he voiced it in her presence the other day. He is quite certain nothing ever will, but still he must try. 

In the morning he rides to Brocket Hall. He goes straight to the hot house where he tends to a bed of pale purple moonflowers. In the daylight, their buds are tightly furled, but by nightfall, they will open and reveal a fragrant, ruffled blossom with a delicate yellow center. He had hoped to offer the Queen several pots of this specimen for the royal gardens. He loves to think of her, strolling the gardens at night, seeking out the delicate flowers and stopping to enjoy their sweetness. Perhaps she might even think of him. The thought brings a tendril of light into the darkness of his despair. When he is done tending the moonflowers, he spends a long while drip feeding dozens of orchids. They are at once fragile, but relentless; natural, but exotic. They are so very like his Queen. 

He spends the night at Brocket Hall and returns to his city dwelling in the morning. 

The day is almost nigh. He cannot predict what he will do, only that darkness will fall, as it always does. 

He falls asleep in his chair, the box open like a yawning mouth before him on the desk, and his son’s lock of hair twined around his finger like a golden ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the brevity of this chapter... life and all that stuff... If you feel so inclined, please say hello in the comments and let me know what you are thinking of the story. This is very different from what I usually attempt, so comments are so very much appreciated. As always, thank you so sincerely for taking the time to read my little thing, and know that your presence here is so so so appreciated with my entire heart, from whence this story flows. xoxoxo, SS.


	10. Held

She needs only extend her hand and it is filled with the stem of a champagne glass, filled to the brim. It is a relief to be able to stop dancing with the Grand Duke, for even a moment, on the pretense she is thirsty, but while she raises the glass to her lips, her eyes flutter nervously over the crowd. Lord M is nowhere to be found. Lady Portman, however, has found Victoria.

“Ma’am, is everything alright?”

“Of course everything is alright,” Victoria snaps, even as her brow knits into a knot. “Why on earth wouldn’t everything be alright?”

“It’s just that you looked concerned, Ma’am,” Lady Portman says in a quiet tone. “The Grand Duke certainly seemed, shall we say, attentive in his dancing? I only wondered if perhaps you needed an escape from his persistence?” Victoria looks up at Emma’s face which bears an expression of determined poise over maternal vigilance.

“Thank you, Emma, I am quite well. I love to dance and His Grand Ducal Highness is an infatuating dancer. But have we seen Lord M yet? He was supposed to be here ages ago. I can’t imagine where he’s gotten off to.”

“Shall I inquire after him, Ma’am?”

“Yes.” Victoria pleads just as Alexander sweeps her into another dance. As she is twirled around the floor, she finally catches sight of him. So captivated is she by the elegant column he makes in his formal attire, she hardly notices the Grand Duke’s hand inches lower and lower down her waist until it is in a most startling position. Her eyes widen instinctively and she has to focus with all her might on the dance steps to avoid tripping over his feet or her own. She is dizzy by the time Lord Alfred cuts in and sends Alexander off to take a message from St. Petersburg. She stumbles to the edge of the ballroom and accepts another glass of champagne. The chilled bubbles tickle her throat.

“May I have the honor?”

She turns and nearly spills her champagne on him. Quickly she hands the glass off so she can accept his outstretched hand. “You are late,” she says breathlessly. The warmth of his hand flows though her gloves, and she is immediately frustrated she cannot strip them off to feel his very skin.

“I am here,” he says and waltzes her to the middle of the room.

“I was missing you,” she says.

“You looked like you were holding your own,” he chuckles. “In fact, I don’t know when I’ve seen you look so happy as when you were being spun around on the dance floor.”

“I told you I love to dance.”

“That you did, Ma’am. That you did.” He gives her hand a little squeeze and sucks his cheeks in as he smiles primly at her.

“Thank you for sending Lord Alfred to rescue me from His Grand Ducal Highness,” she smiles coyly. “I can safely assume that was your doing, can I not?”

“Yes, you can. Safely,” he says. “Royal or not, we cannot have foreign guests believing they may behave like boars with our Queen, now can we?” Between them, they share a knowing grin that is not at all prim.

“I was scared you weren’t going to come tonight, Lord M,” she says and is surprised at how small her voice sounds. It is not at all the confident Queen’s voice with which she greeted the Grand Duke, in French no less, only an hour or so before.

“I am here now,” he says and smiles down on her upturned face. His warmth feels like the sun, radiating everywhere throughout her body.

“And you are not cross with me? I feared you were upset, after. . .” her voice trails off.

“Cross? With you? How could I ever be cross with you? You must not worry so, Ma’am.”

“Very well, Lord M,” she sighs. “I am glad you kept your promise to dance with me tonight, but you did not prepare me for what an accomplished dancer you are.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

“If only we could dance together every night,” she confesses, almost without thinking. Champagne has not softened her gaze so much that she fails to see his face stiffen at her sentiment.

“You are so very young,” he says. His expression is kind and his tone indulges her, but she does not want to be indulged.

“I am not so very young,” she bickers back. “I am old enough to be Queen!”

“Of course, Ma’am,” he smiles, and again his indulgence piques her.

“I suppose you would tell me, as everyone else does, that you are old enough to be my father?”

“Is that what they say?” He attempts to maintain a placid disposition, but her words hit their mark. They sting.

“Indeed they do. You see, I’ve been warned about you, Lord M,” Victoria says with an upturned brow and an almost impish smile. He is suddenly eager for the dance to end so he can bow out of the evening, now that his obligation has been met. “I’ve never known a father,” Victoria continues.

“Nor I a daughter,” Melbourne manages as he waltzes her flawlessly around the floor. He can feel the entire room watch them.

“Do you think, perhaps, that is why we are so keenly drawn to one another?” Victoria asks him. Though her words prick his pride, her young face is sweet and guileless.

“Perhaps it is, Ma’am,” he says. He forces a pinched smile and swallows hard at all the other words that rise in his throat. All of the other declarations he imagines he will bring back and place into the velvet-lined box, next to his son’s golden curl and the dried flower Caro had given him on their wedding day. He will close the lid and all will remain silent within.

He feels the crowd follow them in their seemingly never-ending dance. How they all envy him at that very moment. He holds in his own two arms the most lovely woman in the Palace, no, in the whole of Europe! His hand on her tiny waist, he can feel her every breath. He needs only glance down to gaze upon the delicious, creamy puffs of her diamond-adorned breasts as they rise and fall in her decadent gown. As long as the song plays, she is his very own, suspended in a musical dream. He does not know now if he wants the music to end or if he wants it to continue forever.

Alas, it is not for him to decide, for the music does end.

In the applause that follows, he is distracted and loses sight of Victoria. He finds a steward and obtains a much needed sherry. He plans to consume his drink quickly and make a hasty retreat from the Palace, but his plans are foiled when Lady Portman flies at him out of nowhere. “Lord M, you must look to the Queen,” she says discreetly. Melbourne blinks several times, then follows her pointed gaze to see Her Royal Highness engaged in some sort of altercation with the Lady Flora. He suppresses the obscenity on his tongue, tosses back the rest of his sherry, and places the glass on a tray which is conveniently passing by.

“Ma’am,” he says as he approaches the Queen. Someone instructs the orchestra to play and the music and dance distracts the crowd from the scene that had been unfolding. Victoria looks up at him with a bleary smile and wobbles a bit on her feet. She has clearly taken too much champagne. He takes the glass that is in her hand now, passes it off, and says, “It is rather warm in here. Shall we find a breath of fresh air? Perhaps out on one of the balconies?” She nods and he shepherds her out of the ballroom. He brings her to a balcony off of a less trafficked room, where they are alone.

“The nerve of that woman,” Victoria rages. She paces the length of the balcony. It is much more quiet where they have found themselves, but they can still hear the music and crowd they left behind.

“Ma’am, it has been a long evening and you are much excited. Perhaps it would be best if you sought your chamber and took some rest. Shall I call for the Baroness Lehzen?”

Victoria stops short. “What? No! No, I do not want Lehzen.” She steps up to him and giggles. “I’m not done dancing. I’m not done dancing with you.” Any issue with Lady Flora is immediately forgotten. Her cheeks flush and her eyes shine in the dark of the June night. She is close enough to him so he can smell the night blooming jasmine she has pinned in her hair. He draws a breath and brings his hands behind his back. Straightening himself, he says, “Ma’am, I believe it would be best if you retire. You are not yourself.”

“Nonsense, Lord M, I have never been more myself!” She exclaims. She does a little twirl so her dress floats out around her, but her balance is off and she tips a bit. He catches her at her elbow before she trips and falls. Again she giggles. Part of him wants to laugh at how charmingly adorable this drunken little pixie before him is. But the rational part of him is desperate to keep the Queen from embarrassing herself in this inebriated state. The rational part wins out. He lets go of her arm and repeats his bid to send her to bed. “But I do not want to go to bed,” she whines.

“Ma’am, you are being petulant,” he hisses.

“And you are being paternal,” she chortles. “Come now, I want to dance with you!” She grabs the collar of his jacket and pulls herself into him in a sudden and surprising motion that catches him entirely off guard.

For a moment he stares down at her. Her lips push out in a plump pout. It would be so easy to lower his head and press his own mouth against those luscious, pink petals. The thought of how soft she would be grips his heart so hard, it nearly ceases to beat in his chest. He places his hands over hers and gently takes her hands from his coat. “Not tonight,” he says.

For a moment she stares up at him. His face is so bland it is nearly impossible to discern what he thinks or feels. But warmth flows between their bodies like the midnight, June breeze. She stumbles backwards one step and begins to turn, but another force compels her to spin back around and step toward him again. “Yes tonight,” she insists. “Yes tonight and every night. I am the Queen! I demand you dance with me!” She opens her arms slightly and bites her lower lip because it is quivering desperately with fear he shall refuse her.

Her eyes are wide. Her hands shake. Victoria does not stand before Melbourne with the dignity and poise of a queen, yet he is all the more utterly beguiled by this artless, wild creature. He bows slightly and takes her in his arms. On the balcony, under the June moon and stars, they dance to subtle strains that reach them from the orchestra, way off in the ballroom of another world.

When the music ends, she does not release him. In fact, she leans against him, laying her head down on his chest. His arms come down by his sides but hers slip around his back. She peeks up at him. He looks off over the edge of the balcony toward the gardens. “It’s as though you’re pretending you’re not here,” she says softly.

“Ma’am, the dance has ended.” He rasps and she hears his voice come from his chest.

“But I don’t want it to end,” she whispers.

“It must.”

She frowns and takes a moment to strip her gloves off. After tossing them to the side, she reaches up and touches his cheek. “Don’t you want to hold me?”

“Ma’am, it is late.”

“I want you to hold me,” she sighs and nudges his hands up to her waist. When at last he complies, her fingers seek out the patch of flesh above his cravat and below his chin. She strokes it idly as she nestles her little body against his. “I feel so safe with you, Lord M. Like nothing could go wrong in your arms. Indeed I do not believe there is any catastrophe through which you could not guide me.”

“Ma’am,” he chokes. “I’m afraid it would be most catastrophic if anyone found us posed like this.” He stifles a moan and prays her dress is cumbersome enough she cannot feel how thick and hard he grows in his breeches.

“I don’t care. I’ve wanted this. To be held, like this, by you. I wish you could hold me like this always. Always.” She sighs and her fingers graze over his earlobe. The delicious torture is almost more than he can bear. “This feeling of safety, Lord M, is this what it feels like to have a father? To be held by a father?”

He grabs her shoulders and turns her, then backs her up until she is against the Palace wall. Unable to stop himself, he presses into her and brings his hand to the back of her neck. Her head falls back in his hand and she looks up into his face with shimmering, endless eyes and a thrill of ecstasy on her lips. He lowers his face to her cheek. “Victoria,” he says fiercely against her ear. “This is not how a father holds a daughter,” and he pulls her against him so tightly for a moment he believes he might absorb her into his own being.

“No, I did not think so,” she whispers and her breath is heated and moist against his skin. Her hands grip at his back and she feels if she lets go she will plummet from an impossible height. She feels his nose on her neck as he crushes himself against her, and then the briefest sensation of his lips on the crest of her shoulder. She shivers at the warmth and brings her hands to his face. His eyes are closed as she presses her forehead against his. Their noses touch. She feels his brow furrow with her own and when she looks at him she asks, “Why do you look so sad?”

He opens his eyes and she is instantly, deeply embedded in the forest of him, lost and found and at one. She trails her fingers over each of his eyelids, pausing to tactilely worship the little creases by their sides. “We must desist,” he says. “This is madness.”

“But I do not want to desist,” she states plainly. She runs her index finger over his lips. He rolls his eyes back and closes them again. A strangled moan emanates from his throat and causes a bizarre flip in Victoria’s lower abdomen. She jumps in surprise. His eyes snap open.

“Ma’am, forgive me. I lost myself.” Horrified by the undignified noise he has just made in front of the Queen, he attempts to extricate himself from her embrace, but she clings tenaciously to him. Standing on her tiptoes, she presses a series of little kisses against his neck and is treated to a similar noise.

“Do I hurt you?” She asks, somewhat aghast.

“Not at all,” he mutters. He strokes her chin and his fingers ghost over her pale neck. He taps the diamond necklace that adorns her and shakes his head. “But you must allow me to leave. Please. I beg of you.”

“Allow you to leave? Of course not; I forbid it.” She entwines her hands around his neck and pulls his face down to hers. “Do you understand me? I forbid you to leave me.”

“Ma’am,” he murmurs. He can smell the champagne sweetness of her breath against his own lips. “You do not understand these, erh, matters. You are. . . so young. . . and naive.”

“Not so very young,” she whispers almost against his mouth. “Old enough to love the way you make me feel, William.”

“Oh dear Lord in heaven,” he groans. “You know not what you say, Ma’am. You know not what you do. And you know not what you do to me!” Roughly, he tears her arms from him and shoves her against the wall so he can push away. He turns from her and walks to the edge of the balcony. He grips the cement barrier and tries to breathe. His stomach churns, his head swims, and his groin aches mightily. Where is his breath? He cannot find his breath. He leans over the balcony and searches for a gust of anything resembling air. He does not wait for her to excuse him. He finds the stairs off of the balcony and takes them, as rapidly as his feet can go. He propels himself down and away from the Queen.

At the foot of the balcony, he finds himself close to the Palace gardens. He takes a couple of desperately quick turns and allows himself to slow his pace. He clutches the trunk of a dogwood tree that is bursting with pink blossoms so it looks like a frothy gown in the moonlight. He forces himself to slow his breath and remember himself. He will need to return in several days time and make reparations, but she has had her fill of champagne and it is likely her memory will be hazy at best. He tries to rationalize the situation.

“I did not grant you leave Us, Lord M,” her voice comes like a song behind him.

He turns.

“Ma’am. You must retire and allow me to return to my home as well.”

She steps up to him. “But you see, I don’t think I can,” she says.

“You can. You will. You must.”

“No,” she breathes and before he knows what is happening she has caught him yet again in her embrace. “I want to be held. I want to be held by you.” They stumble through the darkness until their bodies find a bench on which they both seem to fall.

“Ma’am, we will be found,” he says.

“No, not Ma’am,” she says. “Call me by my name, by the name you first gave me.”

“Oh, Victoria,” he sighs, helpless to do anything but obey.

“Yes!” She exclaims and throws her arms around him. “It is dark and we are alone. We will not be found, William.” She caresses him infinitely.

“My Love, you know not what you are doing. Please,” he begs.

“Hush,” she whispers. “Allow me to look at you face. Let me read you.” It is dark, but she studies him with her fingers all over the ridges of his face. “Why are you so impassive? Feel for me! Feel what I feel, William!”

“Victoria,” he murmurs as he lowers his head into the crook of her neck and inhales slowly and easily. What bitter irony he should find his breath only against her skin like this. “I do.”

“Feel it now,” she practically weeps.

“I do,” he says. He lowers his head to her breast and kisses over her heart. He nips and nuzzles her milky flesh. When he groans at the salty sweet taste of her, his noise makes her hips rotate.

“Oh, you make me feel so warm,” she moans. “I ache heavily. . . am I ill?”

“No,” he says against her neck. He dips his face down and kisses from between her breasts up to the hollow at the base of her throat. She is impossibly delectable. He wants to lick and bite and devour her like an animal, but he stops himself and forces himself to breathe. She whimpers and wriggles closer to him. She clutches his head against her breast and shudders. Her fingers tangle in his hair and drag his head back up to her face. When they look at one another, their eyes are glazed. “This is madness,” he whispers for the second time that evening.

“If this is madness, then I wish to never again be sane,” she sighs. They clutch one another’s face, only a breath apart if they could breathe. “I feel feverish, as though my flesh burns for your touch, yet at the same time, in your arms I feel still and saved.” Their lips hover so close to one another. His fingers work the back of her neck as he grapples with the need and yearning in his gut. He brushes his mouth over hers, not exactly in a kiss, but in a delicate precursor to one, and he can feel how heated and open and wanting she is under his touch. He breathes her breath and he thinks perhaps he will live life anew. At the brush of his lips, she gasps and arches so her breasts touch his chest.

His hands caress her shoulders and arms as though she is a delicate bird, as though he could scoop her up and place her back in a gilded cage where she would be safe. He squeezes her arms, pulls her into him, pushes her back and turns his head away. “We cannot. We cannot!” He says bitterly. He turns from her.

“Do you not. . . do you not feel for me?”

“What I feel does not matter, Ma’am.”

“It matters to me. Be honest with me. Please.” She wrings her hands in her lap and tears begin to gather in her eyes.

“You are like a perfect rosebud, Ma’am. Your supple youth and beauty defy words and your sweetness is more delicate than the crystal from which you drank your champagne. I am not worthy enough to stand in your shadow, let alone to hold you.” He stands and walks several paces before turning back to her. He continues to plead his case as though he stands before the House of Parliament, with passion and eloquence. “Your company will be sought by suitors from all over the globe, Ma’am. They will be young and virile and valiant. You will find utmost happiness and charm in your life to balance the rigors of ruling a country, but it cannot. . . it will not be with me.” He turns and clings to the dogwood.

“You turn your back on me? On your Queen?”

“Forgive me, Ma’am,” he says. “I have no other choice.”

“I do not understand,” she says with a small sniffle.

He turns his head. “What is it you do not understand, Ma’am?”

“Only a moment ago, you held me, and now you are back again to being impassive, as though you do not want to be here. My feelings have not changed. I still want to be held, by you and only by you, and yet it seems you have decided you do not care for me after all?” She places her hands, palm up on her lap as she exhales in a sad shudder that seems perilously close to a sob. He dare not look from her hands up to her face, which he knows will be streaked with tears of his creation, yet the perfect, pink shells of her open palms remind him of the afternoon when he watched over her as she slept and the image of her innocent beauty gnashes at the meat of his heart.

“You are a lovely, young Queen at her Coronation ball. You should not trouble yourself with the likes of me. Of course I shall always care for you, Ma’am.”

“But why then does it not show on your face? Why can I not read you? You have closed yourself like a book!”

“If I may, Ma’am, some books are better left unread.”

“I cannot accept that!” She stands and rushes at him bringing with her a waft of jasmine that nearly destroys his willpower. “Did I do something wrong? Please, please tell me so I can correct it,” she implores. It is exactly more than he can bear. He gathers her again to his chest, but this time lightly, gently. He kisses her forehead and caresses the back of her neck.

“Sweet, beautiful, precious girl,” he murmurs. “You could never do anything that I would not worship. You must never doubt that. Do you understand?” She nods, looking up at him with dazed eyes. He wipes the tears off her cheeks with his thumb, knowing he should go into his pocket for his handkerchief, but greedy for every sensation of her on his own self. “Please do not cry,” he whispers. He gathers her head to his breast and looks up at the night sky, begging the moon and the stars to guide him. This celestial being in his embrace makes so little sense to him, it is only logical the heavens should be able to tell him what to do with her.

And yet, all is silence, but for Victoria’s shuddering breath against him. “My head hurts,” she says at last.

“You must retire, Ma’am.”

“But I don’t want to leave you.”

“I will be back in the morning to go through the boxes with you, if it pleases you.”

“Oh. That.” Her voice is sullen, disappointed, and she looks up at him blankly. “Will it be awkward?”

“It does not need to be. No, Ma’am.” He relaxes and releases his arms on her. She steps off and straightens her gown. A single tear escapes her eye and slides down her cheek. He brings out his handkerchief and offers it to her. She takes it and presses it to her cheek and then her lips. His prick, which had gone dormant with grief, wakes suddenly at the sight of her mouth on the linen and he hates himself for how savagely he desires her.

Victoria gathers herself to her full height and draws a deep breath. “You must forgive Us any indiscretion, Lord M,” she says. “We are particularly susceptible to champagne, you see.”

“You owe no apology, Ma’am,” he says already missing the crisp taste of her name on his tongue.

“You are a most gracious friend,” she sighs. She puts a hand over her heart and stifles the urge to cry that arises from some deep, dark pit inside her. Already it feels as though their dance had happened to someone else in an entirely different country. Already it feels as though their touches and embraces and words had happened in a dream, or not at all. Perhaps it is the lingering effect of champagne, but she feels confused and isolated. As if to secure the details for herself, she says, “It was lovely to dance with you. It was lovely to be held by you, Lord M, only if for a night. I shall never forget it, and whatever else happens, I shall always have that.”

“Good night, Ma’am and sweet dreams,” he says and bows. He watches her walk back up the Palace stairs. He watches her until she disappears from his sight entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooooo boy... that was a long one... are you still out there?


	11. Smolder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alone in his bed, he smolders. . . 
> 
> this chapter is NSFW. . . be warned...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'all... it has been a long week and sometimes life is unkind... but there are people who are very very sweet and loving and who reach out and encourage despite it all. My words cannot express the gratitude and love I feel for the sweet, tender hearts who have been here for me this week. I believe you will know who you are, and I am happy to tell you as well. Please, please know you have my heart and soul and all of everything really. AmyPop, JennStar, LaurieLove, GreenPhoenix, and so many others who support me and my writing. It really means more than I can say. Love is bigger than anything and Kindness always wins. I'd also like to thank the Vicbourne- Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne group on Facebook and its amazing moderators for being so sweet and supportive and darling. You all have my heart and so many warm, warm hugs.... 
> 
> Is it weird now that this chapter is like wicked smutty??? I hope not... oops...

Alone in his bed, he smolders. 

Dover House has never seemed so cold and empty, as though it is made entirely of ice, and yet he burns within. Never has a fever gripped him so mercilessly. Surely, the frozen tomb in which he resides will melt around his febrile form. Blankets thrashed off, he lies in his nightshirt atop the mattress. He balls his hand into a fist and smashes it against his cushion. It might as well be a stone on which he lies. 

Having held her in his arms, nothing will ever feel soft again. Having breathed her into his lungs, nothing will ever smell sweet again. Having touched his lips against her flesh, he will never know another moment of tender sanity. 

He throws a leg over the edge of the bed. He tosses a hand behind his head. 

He reeks of brandy. It will surely seep from his pores tomorrow if he rides out in the sun. Yet for all the drink he’s taken since leaving the Palace, sleep evades him. Thoughts, however, plague him. Thoughts are dry kindling that stoke the fire in which his body burns. 

It has been said, when she greeted the Archbishop of Canterbury, to learn of her uncle’s demise, Victoria was dressed only in her nightgown. 

How often has Melbourne mused on this myth and imagined her thus. Victoria’s auburn tresses flow about her shoulders, an angel in a sparkling white gown, so sheer sun shines through it and grants a silhouette of her nubile body. The image heats his blood to boiling. He groans. His cock weeps and strains under his nightshirt, thrusting itself straight up toward the ceiling. 

He imagines her now, opening his door, tiptoeing in, standing before him at his bedside in her long, gossamer gown. Moonlit, she glows, silver and ethereal. His Child Queen. The Bride of England. 

“You would not come to me, so you see, I have come to you,” she says. Her lips twitch in an impish smile.

“You should not be here,” he says.

“And yet, here I am. It is the only place I would be.” Her voice is a cooling salve for his savage burns. 

“My precious love,” he whispers, but says nothing more for her vision of beauty renders him quite speechless as she moves, almost ghostlike, in the dark. 

“My dear, William,” she says. She melts his name on her tongue. “Are you quite alright?”

“I suffer,” he rasps. “I suffer terribly for you, Victoria.” He is close to tears as she touches him at last. She runs her hand along his chest where his shirt falls open. She bends over him and her hair falls on his face, softer than a rabbit’s pelt. Would that he could wrap his entire body in her mane. “It is wrong and I know it, but I cannot help myself.” 

“Let Us see how We can ameliorate your suffering,” she purrs and kneels on the bed beside him. On her face she wears an expression of complete and utter adoration, much like she did earlier that evening in the garden. 

“How did I ever manage to walk away from you?” He touches the tip of her chin with his index finger and thumb. 

“Hush now.” She lowers her face to nuzzle his chest and opens his shirt so she can kiss over his heart. He feels her lips smile against him. “How I love to feel your heart beat beneath my lips. How I love to feel it beat, just for me.”

“Just for you alone, my Love,” he whispers and slips his fingers through her hair. When she raises her face she smiles and her eyes are clear and true. Happiness brims in both of them, the likes of which neither have ever known. He pulls her down and raises his head to catch her lips in a kiss. Indeed she is making his heart beat faster and faster as she presses herself against him, as their kiss grows deeper. She boldly nips his lower lip and sucks it into her mouth, moaning sweetly as she does. She lays flat against him now, and his arms come around her, hold her close as her hands cup his face and neck and tickle his ever sensitive ears. “Oh how I want you, Victoria,” he sighs. “Only you. Always you. You alone, my Love.”

“Mmmh, yes, so I can feel,” she whispers and presses against him. He is hard as a candlestick against her soft stomach. He arches up against her. Her silky flesh yields beneath his flaming, solid length and cradles him in an impossibly sweet manner. Under his night shirt, he is already dripping, more aroused for her than he can possibly contain. 

“I ache for you,” he groans and grinds against her but it is not enough. “Your skin. I need to feel your skin. Now!” he pleads and starts to ruck up both of their night clothes. 

“Yes,” she murmurs and obliges by sitting up and pulling her loose garment over her head. 

“Wait,” he says before she resumes her position on top of him. “Let me look at you. Stand.” She obeys his every word before it even crosses the threshold of his mouth. Completely nude, she stands beside his bed and he takes her in with his eyes. She is small, sure, but also plump and full as a partridge in the right places. The lavish curves of her flesh glimmer like the moon and dazzle his eye. He most certainly will be blinded by her brilliance. As if to taunt him, she pulls her hands through her hair and raises them above her head so her hair cascades over her arms. In this position, her breasts jut out most wantonly. “Mine, now!” He cries and lunges for her. Arms around her waist, he buries his head in her breasts and sucks a pearly, pink nipple between his lips. She yelps at the sudden sensation and her cry causes him to pull her back to the bed. He pins her against the pillow and suckles her breasts, first one and then the other, until her hips writhe beneath him. He tears his own shirt off so he can feel his flesh, hot and silky, against her. “You’re beautiful. You’re perfect,” he whispers as his mouth finds hers and he kisses her, hard and deep. His cock nudges between her thighs, but he is not ready for that, not yet. He wants to consume, to taste, every inch of her.

And he does. 

He kisses her beneath her breasts where she is warm and sweaty and salty, then he licks the delicate ridges of her ribs as he works his way over her belly. He swirls his tongue around her navel and licks even lower. He finds a little nest for himself between her legs, which are already open. With a hand on each of her thighs, he presses her even further apart, and dips his tongue into her swollen slit. She arches up most receptively. At once, she is sweet and a little sour and positively gorgeous. She is slick as a custard and he wastes no time making her even more so. Parting her folds with his tongue alone, he sets to finding her bundle of nerves, which is alive as though with lightening. 

He cannot help but rub himself against the bed as he laps and sucks at his delicious treasure. So responsive is she, arching up, thrusting herself against his face, her fingers snaking through his hair. It would be so tempting for him to let go, just like this, pressed between the bedsheets and his belly, as he draws circles and spirals around her nub, but he holds himself off. 

“Oh, you make me feel so warm. William, my William,” she whimpers. He feels her getting close, and he draws off for a moment. He backs away and blows cool air on her, teases her until she does what he knows she will, and what he wants her to do, and grabs his head and forces it back between her legs. “You are so good to me,” she cries and he closes his mouth around her pearl and sucks relentlessly. “My Love, I’ll spend, I’ll spend now! OH!” She cries out and he feels her thighs tense under his hands. 

He feels all her energy gather and explode in a glorious climax, beneath his tongue. As she pulsates, he thrusts his tongue into her so he can feel her burst again and again around him. She dredges his head up and pulls him up into a frenzied kiss. Her legs instantly wrap around his back. 

“I must have you now,” he grunts and takes hold of his prick. He angles it between her legs and prepares to take her, but before he knows what is happening, she has thrust her hips up and devoured him to the hilt in her. He throws his head back at the sensation of her sodden core, wrapped tightly around him, still pulsating with her first orgasm. The head of his prick throbs and releases a mighty bead of seed as it threatens to come on initial contact with this rare and perfect flesh. 

He pushes up on his hand to take his weight off her. He looks down on her and she smiles up at him. “Take me then,” she says, with that little upturned eyebrow, almost as though she challenges him. So he starts to move. At first he tries to be slow, but she is so slippery and hot and he has been so hard for so long. Before long, he is moving faster, sliding out almost entirely so he can ram himself back into her. She takes it all. She takes it hard and loves every thrust. 

She moves with him in perfect rhythm. He finds a motion that makes her wail with pleasure, grinding his hips down over her mound, and works her that way until he feels her inner walls squeezing against his member in a most enticing way. “Again, William. I shall come again,” she whines and he continues at her until he brings her up and over the edge once more. As she releases around him, she clings to his back and bites the side of his neck. “Feel me! Feel what I feel!” She urges as she rotates her hips and brings him along with her. 

“I do,” he growls in her ear as he prepares to finish. “You alone, my Love, I adore you!” He lifts her knee over his shoulder so he may press himself as deep inside her as he can go. With a final thrust and a lusty groan, he arches back and spills into her in wave after wave of white, glimmering pleasure. “Victoria. Victoria.” He chants into his pillow. 

He catches his breath so he might utter all the sweet words he longs to say. 

He catches his breath and smells his own rank scent of stale brandy come back at him from the sheets. With a sob, he collapses. 

His prick is sticky and soft in his hand as he falls into fitful sleep on his stomach, just as the sun begins to rise. 

Dawn smolders in the sky, and he is still alone.


	12. Flowers, Part Two

She takes breakfast in her bed, then demands a bath.

Lehzen clears her throat and says, “It will take some time to heat the water, and I believe Lord Melbourne is arriving soon.”

“He will wait, Lehzen,” Victoria sighs. “I am sore from dancing last night and I believe a bath will set me right. Please see to it.” Her head hurts. She is tired and crabby, having slept very little. What sleep she did obtain was punctured with vivid, confusing dreams that left her feeling sticky and tingling between her legs. Immersion in a steaming tub seems mightily indicated prior to meeting her Prime Minister, or anyone for that matter.

“Perhaps you should spend the day in bed, Ma’am,” Lehezen suggests. “It was such a . . . late night for you. We could send Brodie out to let Lord Melbourne know you are not to be disturbed today.”

“No, Lehzen! No!” Victoria insists a bit too quickly, and adjusts her tone. “I shall be quite well after a bath. That is all. I do not wish to spend the day abed.” She forces a smile for her devoted Baroness and suppresses the urge to snap at her to stop wringing her hands and looking at her with that wrought expression.

“Very well, Ma’am,” Lehzen says, but the look of consternation does not escape Victoria.

As Skerrett prepares her tub, and water is heated and brought in, Victoria sits in her window with her sketching materials. She draws a tree, and beneath it, a man. His back to the viewer, he sits and looks out over a river. She traces the light folds of his shirtsleeves, as he has taken off his coat, and she tries to capture how the sun catches in his hair and creates shadows elsewhere around him. Though she cannot see his face, there is much emotion there; of this fact, she is certain. But she does not know of what he thinks. Using the edge of a charcoal to shade his back so it conveys strength, she thinks perhaps she will ask this pensive man of what he thought, that afternoon on the river bank. Was it sorrow she had seen in his eyes? And if so, why?

She resolves to know.

Her new line of questioning will be a welcome distraction to that which had transpired between them the night before. Setting her charcoal down, and biting her lower lip, she cannot decide if she wants to forget every detail, or have it seared impenetrably into the coils of her memory. Were her head not smarting so sharply, she surely could bring back more moments of memory from both their dancing, and their time on the balcony when they were completely alone. As it is, the night exists in fragments. She rubs her temple irritably.

Skerrett tells her the bath is ready.

The hot water quickly turns her body pink beneath her bathing gown. Skerrett brushes out her hair as Victoria soaks. “Do you want it washed today, Ma’am?”

“No, Skerrett. It takes so long to dry, and it was just washed recently. Just do something simple and pretty with it when I am done.” Keeping Lord M waiting while she bathes is long enough without making him wait for the hours it would take to have her hair washed and dried as well. She wouldn’t see him until supper!

“Yes, Ma’am. Of course.” Skerrett continues brushing and massages the Queen’s head, almost as if she can read her mind and knows exactly the manner in which Victoria needs soothing. She leans back and closes her eyes. The heat of the water relaxes her muscles and the tension in her head starts to let go at last. She breathes deeply, appreciating the kindness of Skerrett’s fingers on her scalp.

As her head clears, she realizes for all of the caresses, and for all her insistent attempts, she had been quite rejected by Lord M the previous night. She scowls, trying to work out just what happened and why he did not want her. Skerrett notices the furrow in her brow and moves her fingers to rub over Victoria’s forehead.

_Damn all of that champagne, and damn Sir John for being right about her inability to tolerate spirits!_

Her heart sinks like a stone in the tub, and she tries to parse out the happenings of the night prior. Maybe, Lord M simply feels as a father for her after all. He has been her most dedicated mentor and her most trusted friend, and there is of course the age difference between them, that everyone else loves to point out. Victoria sighs and slides down against the back of the tub. It isn’t what she wants, of course, but if that is how he feels, she must respect-

She is just dozing off when the memory wallops her like a cannon ball dropped on her gut. _Victoria, this is not how a father holds a daughter!_

His voice echoes so immediately she hears it now. It whooshes in her ear. She feels the heat of his breath on her jaw and the scruff of his face against her cheek. He _had_ said that to her, had he not? She dares not open her eyes as she scrambles to collect the sacred threads of this memory.

A strange energy gathers very low in her abdomen and moves even lower. It builds in intensity as she remembers his lips on her breast and neck, the urgency with which he pressed himself against her. Her breath catches and even further down, she starts to feel swollen and full. Between her legs, there is a swirling buzz. She is put in mind of a flower that has bloomed very full, and is adorned with glistening dewdrops. She imagines this lush blossom, bobbing through the scented waters of her bath, growing ever more turgid and heavy.

She adjusts herself a little, and the water moves her dress and tickles her between her legs in a way that is not unpleasant, but is absolutely frustrating. She wants more. This was how she felt when Lord M embraced her. She thinks of his hands, of his fingers rifling through the pages in their boxes. How long, and strong and fine his fingers are. What might they feel like in that area where the water and material stir her? Skerrett has gone to lay out her toilette and Lehzen is chatting with Jenkins. Could Victoria possibly peel up her gown and explore that fuzzy patch of mysterious sensation? It begs for it, but she is too frightened to use her own hand. She squeezes her thighs together, subtly as she can, and she finds this brings the feeling up in a way that makes her roll her eyes far back in her head. Thinking of Lord M’s voice, and his arms around her, she clenches her inner muscles and squeezes again and this time it feels almost maddeningly good.

_There is nothing you could do that I would not worship. Sweet, beautiful, precious girl._

She yelps audibly.

“Ma’am are you alright?” Skerrett asks. Victoria’s eyes snap open. She is horrified and quite certain that all the energy flowing from her must be creating a ripple effect in the bathwater, but to her relief she sees the water is calm.

“I am fine,” she croaks. “I think I was just dozing off.”

There is a knock at the door, and Lehzen returns with a tall vase full of lilies.

“These were delivered for you, Ma’am,” Lehzen smiles as she sniffs the flowers.

“How lovely,” Victoria says sleepily. “Bring them here that I might smell them.” Lehzen brings the vase to her and tips it toward Victoria’s face. “Mmm, aren’t they done prettily? I like the light purple ones. Who are they from?”

Lehzen sets the arrangement up on a mantle, and takes a small card out of her pocket. “The card does not give a name, Ma’am. It only says, ‘ _With affectionate congratulations on the event of your ascension to the throne_.’” She shrugs and absently places the card on the edge of a table then comes over to the tub. “Don’t fall asleep in there! You’ll get all wrinkled.”

“You’re right, I suppose. I should get out. Has Lord M arrived yet?”

“Yes, Ma’am, he’s been waiting in your office for the better part of an hour.”

Victoria rises from the bath and is wrapped in warm cloths. She sees the blueish-gray dress that had been laid out for her and she wrinkles her nose. “I shall not wear that today. I would like to wear my white gown with the puffy, short sleeves and the lace trim. Thank you.” She raises her arms to accept the fresh chemise Skerrett is about to put on her. “And prepare some of those lilies to pin on the bodice,” she says.

Lord M seems to enjoy seeing her wear flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you're all officially the best for putting up with my ridiculous sloooowwwww burn, and please leave me lots of comment love so I can continue to be so super inspired to write this little thing for you... I seriously LOVE your comments so so so much. You have no idea how much your thoughts and words mean to me. You all have my heart. . .


	13. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Saturday night treat for you. . . happy reading.

True to his word, Melbourne arrives at Buckingham Palace the next morning to go through the boxes with Victoria, and he is shown inside. A valet has already placed the boxes on the Queen’s desk, but they are yet unopened. It is clear Victoria has not yet been about.

As he stands in the middle of the room, Melbourne realizes he may not have been so true to his word to his Queen in that he has absolutely no clue how he will manage to make this encounter anything less than awkward. He paces the length of carpet, hands clasped behind his back, eyes cast down. His only prayer is that champagne has dimmed her memories of the previous evening, or better yet, obfuscated them entirely.

“William! Good morning!” A cheerful, female voice chimes and draws him round. “Her Majesty is indisposed at the moment. I thought perhaps you and I could take tea and catch up while you wait for her.”

“Good morning to you, Emma,” he says with a bit of a bow and a stiff smile. “No doubt you are looking fresher than many of us this morning.”

Lady Portman breezes into the room and takes a seat on one of the sofas. She motions for Melbourne to do the same as tea is brought in and set on a table before them. Obediently, he claims the seat she has indicated, on the small bench with her. He fears the intimate seating arrangement indicates a conspiratorial conversation is about to ensue.

“Indeed I managed to keep my head last night. It was most fortunate. Our Queen has a weakness for champagne and we wanted to keep a close eye on Her Majesty.” She pauses as she picks up a teacup on its pearly, little saucer. Poised with the cup just below her lips, her eyes are nearly as round as the saucer she holds in her other hand as she continues, “But then the Queen practically disappeared for a large portion of the evening and seemed to retire with nary a word. I don’t suppose you would know anything about that? Would you?” She takes a delicate sip of her tea, managing to not break eye contact with Melbourne.

He blinks and swallows, then dips his head. “Is there a question within your question, Emma?” He picks up the silver tea service and sloshes some steaming liquid into a cup. He should have asked the steward for coffee, strong, black coffee. He plops three cubes of sugar into his cup with little grace, caring not a whit when tea splashes over the rim. There is not enough sweetener in all of England to render this beverage fitting for him at this moment.

“Your absence was recorded as well,” she says, and at last, she looks away.

“You had called me to look after her. I was merely ensuring she stay out of Lady Flora’s path.” He argues defensively.

“Is that what you were doing? Really?”

“You couldn’t possibly be insinuating anything untoward, Emma,” he says and cannot tell if his voice is even remotely credible.

“Do you imagine it has not been noted how you look at her, and how she looks at you?”

“And do you imagine I give a fig what anyone notes?” He snaps without meaning to sound so harsh. She takes it in stride, graciously ignoring the bite of his tone.

“I’ve known you for ages, William, and I know that look. When I saw you watch her dance last night it put me in mind of a time so long ago, when. . . well, never mind that now, but I must urge caution.” Lady Portman sets her teacup on the table and puts a hand over his. She lowers her voice. “She is clearly smitten with you, but you must not be swayed. She is so young.”

“So I’ve been made aware on more than one occasion, by nearly everyone other than Her Majesty herself,” he sighs, bitterly. He sets his cup down and pounds his fist against his knee. “If people could look for one moment past her age, they would do well to note she carries a considerable fire beneath her dewy visage.”

Lady Portman does not lose her composure, even as he becomes more peevish. “That might be true, my dear friend. But she also has a considerable collection of powerful foes. You would do well not to make them your enemies as well.”

“It may be a bit late for that, Emma.” He smiles sadly, picks his cup back up, and drinks his tea in a long gulp, wishing it were brandy.

“Oh, William,” Lady Portman sighs. “I do worry for you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“None the less, I do. Can your career withstand another scandal?”

“Ahhh, Emma. My career is worth little more than a handful of sand in the grand scheme of things. I work now in service of my Queen. That is all.”

“Well more importantly then, what about your heart?”

“What about it?” He shrugs and rolls his eyes up at the ceiling.

“She is young and will be wed sooner than later. Your days in her service are numbered, dearest William. Will your heart be able to withstand another loss?”

It is on his lips to repeat that it is also a bit late for that consideration, but instead, he closes his eyes and exhales. “Had I a functional heart in this old chest anymore, than no, I suppose I could not bear such a thing. As it is, my heart was lost long ago and it has not seemed to return to me.”

Lady Portman smiles, but her eyes are sorrowful as a basset hound as she whispers, “I think we both know that to be entirely untrue. Your heart may once have been lost, but I believe it has been found and reclaimed.” She pats his hand.

“Believe what you will, Emma,” he says. “All will be well.”

“Hmmh, you would not think all will be well by the sight of you this morning. You seem to have dressed most hastily. You’re quite crooked,” she chuckles and leans into him to straighten the emerald green tie at his neck.

“This certainly seems a cozy gathering,” Victoria says. She has entered the room quietly. Lady Portman drops her hands from Lord Melbourne’s neck and bows her head.

“Ma’am,” Melbourne says and stands. He takes her hand and kneels. As he rises, he notes the lilies attached to her dress. While she appears somewhat fatigued around her eyes, she radiates beauty in her gown of white, eyelet lace. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Lord M,” she says. Her eyes dart back and forth between him and Lady Portman. “I see you have been well entertained. I am sorry to have kept you.”

“Not at all. We were just taking tea and refreshing ourselves.” He says.

“Tea?” She laughs. “But you despise tea, Lord M! Why did you not call for a proper cup of coffee? Lady Portman, we should be ashamed for treating our Prime Minister so shamefully. Please see that a strong coffee is prepared and brought for Lord M.”

“Certainly, Ma’am,” Lady Portman says with a curtsey. She raises an eyebrow at Melbourne as she leaves the room.

“That was considerate, but hardly necessary, Ma’am,” he says.

“I disagree. Unless of course you were not done with your intimate conversation with Lady Portman?”

“Not at all, Ma’am,” he says. “She was simply being courteous to me while you were indisposed.”

“What were you two discussing anyhow?” Her tone borders on shrill.

“Surely you are aware that Lady Portman and I have known one another for several decades. Our families go back.” He says, tentatively.

“I see. So you share history.”

“Indeed, Ma’am,” he says with a sigh of relief. “In a way we are practically family.” He smiles at her, but her face blazes with a mix of emotion he cannot name.

“How lovely that she knows you so well,” Victoria says and marches over to her desk. She hastily opens the red box and snatches at papers on top.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, but cannot concoct a single syllable. Instead, he stares at the collection of large ferns and palms growing in a series of enormous Oriental vases by the windows. Beyond the window, the late June day sparkles with warmth, but he suddenly feels as though he slips over very thin ice. He gathers courage to look at the Queen, and finds her squinting at a bunch of papers she has clasped in her fist. Her jaw is set tight. He takes a step toward her. Although she does not look up from the paper she seems to be studying, he can tell she is not really reading it at all. “Ma’am,” he begins. “Perhaps if you are tired, we could take the day off. You could rest. I would be happy to see to any urgent dispatches.”

“Hah! If it were up to you and Lehzen, I would do nothing but stay in bed and rest like a pale, weak creature who would whither up and lose all her strength entirely!”

“I don’t think it would be possible for you to lose your strength, Ma’am. You’ve altogether too much of it.” He attempts to lighten the mood.

“Hmph, well perhaps you would simply like to be rid of me so you and Lady Portman can spend the day together? Is that it?” She slams her fists down on her desk with such vigor that she tips over her pen and nearly upsets the pot of ink beside it. Melbourne bites the inside of his cheek and raises his eyebrows as he suddenly names the emotion that has burst like a storm in the room.

“Ma’am,” he says softly. “Please, come and sit a moment with me, will you?” He extends his hand toward her. She looks up at him at last. Her fair skin is mottled with pink patches from jealous rage surging in her. She hesitates, balling her tiny hands. For a moment, he wonders if she collects her energy to fly at him and beat him with those doll-sized fists. A fit of laughter threatens his lips, but he knows better, and anyway he cannot bear to see her suffer. His eyes pulsate from her face to his hand. At last, she takes it and allows herself to be led to a couple of high backed chairs. “You’ve no need to be jealous, Ma’am,” he says softly.

Her eyes dart toward him. “Jealous? Of Lady Portman? What a ridiculous notion. I am the Queen. I have no need for envy of anyone.” Her words convince neither of them and her shoulders jerk with her ragged breath.

“Very well, Ma’am, but will you allow me to explain anyway?” He asks. She nods once and stares at the wall. Melbourne clears his throat and laces his fingers together in his lap. He leans forward toward her so he does not need to speak at a volume any higher than necessary. “Do you remember the day we rode out and had wine and cheese on the river bank in the sun?”

“Why, yes. I was just thinking of it, in fact.” She looks at him now.

“You might remember I told you that since coming to be your Prime Minister I have suffered less and been more at ease than previously in my life?” He looks her in the eye and she nods. “So, as you might imagine from that statement, and from rumors you may have heard, there were times in my life of great sorrow. Did you know I had a son? My little boy, Augustus, was his name, was not a hale and hearty child. But when Caro left, he was all I had. Then he passed and I had nothing.”

“Oh, Lord M,” Victoria breathes.

“It was a dark time, Ma’am, but through it all, Emma cared for me. She saw to it that I ate and bathed and that I didn’t drink myself to death out of despair. I don’t know if I would be here today, sitting with you, were it not for her generosity of spirit. She has been like a sister to me.”

“I hate to think of you in such despair.”

“It is behind me, Ma’am.”

Victoria is just about to reach for his hand when a knock at the door notifies them Lord Melbourne’s coffee has arrived. They both adjust their posture as it is poured for him. The steward leaves, and Lord Melbourne puts several cubes of sugar into his cup.

“You do like your coffee sweet, don’t you,” she says.

“It’s the only way,” he replies and gives it a little stir.

“It seems a rather simple but intimate thing, to know how a man takes his coffee. Or that he prefers coffee over tea in the first place. Well, I suppose Lady Portman knows all this of you, surely.” She frowns.

“You’re still upset?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“What is it? Tell me,” he urges. Fascinated as he is with the rosy blossoms spreading under her skin, he does not like to see her vexed. She stands and walks to the window.

“I’m trying to make sense of it all,” she begins. “It’s just that last night, you did not want me. And today I come in to find you close together with her, and I cannot help but wonder if she is perhaps more your type? She is older and wiser and has experience that I lack, of course. And she is very beautiful. Of course she is married, but from what I understand, that does not need to matter so much.”

“Please! Stop!” He rushes to her side by the window. “Did you not hear when I said that Emma is like a sister to me? I’ve never desired her in that way.”

“But still, she knows pieces of you that I do not. I find. . .” her voice trails off.

“Finish your thought, Ma’am,” he urges. She looks up into his face. Again, he is put in mind of a doll at the sight of her crystalline eyes and gleaming hair. It seems so long ago, when he first met her and plucked the little, white doll off her chair, and yet it has barely been over a year. To think, this complicated, passionate being before him had gone from a girl playing with dolls to a Queen in a matter of months gives him pause.

“I want all the pieces of you too,” she whispers. “And it makes me most savage that I shall never have them.” Her shoulders seem to slump, as if making this statement has taken an excessive amount of energy out of her.

“Ma’am,” he begins carefully. Every fiber of every muscle of his body strains with the effort it takes to be still and not to clutch her to him right at this second. He forces himself to breathe evenly. He can smell the fragrant lily at her breast. “Ours is a complex but sacred relationship. The bond between Monarch and Prime Minister is a very special thing.”

“How dare you?” Her voice sizzles as her energy returns. “How dare you condescend to me like that after holding me in those very arms last night? It is worse than almost anything you could do to me! It is as though you are lying to me!” Tears spill, hot and furious onto her blazing cheeks.

“Then, you remember?” He asks. “Last night?”

“Yes, I remember! Of course I remember!” She cries. And at this she does bring her arms up and batters her fists against his chest. She is so small, barely capable of inflicting more damage upon him than that of a dragonfly’s wings, but he catches her bare arms in his strong hands and stops her from her onslaught. At the touch of his warm hands on her skin, she stops almost instantly and her eyes catch in his. She chokes on a sob. His hands soften on her arms. He feels her biceps flex and relax in his grip. Her hands flutter to the lapels of his jacket and rest easily there as her face morphs from ferocity to devastation. “Of course I remember,” she weeps softly. “Could I so easily forget my heart’s desire?”

“I see now you have not,” he offers.

“And I see perhaps it is easy for you because you do not desire me? Perhaps it is easy because I am not your heart’s desire.”

Incredulously, he looks up to the ceiling and heaves a shuddering sigh. “This is anything but easy for me, Ma’am,” he says.

“Tell me then,” she whispers, and though her voice is but a fragile tendril of sound, it carries a command he finds irresistible.

“You could not possibly understand. You who are so young and full of vivacity. . .”

“Try.”

“It is as if I were asleep for many years. My life was tolerable, but it tended to be dark. I grew more or less comfortable in that darkness, Ma’am, if not entirely content. And then, this little light began to grow until it is quite bright, too bright to ignore any longer. To awake so suddenly after such a long and deep slumber is no small thing, Ma’am. I find myself very much disoriented when I am close to you, as I am now.” He caresses her arms. “It is as though I want to close my eyes from the blinding light, but at the same time I am drawn to it as though I have no choice. You are my Sovereign, Ma’am. I serve and honor you with all that I am, but. . .” he clutches her to him and inhales, finding the clearest breath he knows exists on earth, at the crown of her head. “I am only a man and I find myself brutally ensnared between my duty to Country and my desire for you!”

She pushes away from his chest, just far enough to peer up at him. “So you do? Desire me?”

“Oh,” he sighs. He cups her chin in his hand and his other hand caresses the small of her back. “Oh, Victoria. Could I possibly exist in your presence and know any other feeling?”

As the words escape his lips, he knows them to be true. He is not a man given to dishonesty, but something about the stark truth of these words strikes him as particularly vivid. He watches Victoria’s eyes widen in response, and as he feels a most peculiar ache in his chest, he knows at once that Emma was correct. Victoria has rediscovered his long lost heart, but no sooner has she done so, than she stole it for her very own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's all for the moment... I'm afraid it is a bit of a cliff hanger, but hopefully there will be more quite soon! I hope you are still reading and enjoying. Please leave me some comment love if you feel up to it. I am always infatuated by your comments, and find them so very motivating for my writing! Lots of love and happy wishes to you on this blustery, cold Saturday night. Hope you are all warm and well. xoxoxo.... SS.


	14. More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short continuation of the previous chapter.. I've come down with a nasty cold and my dreamy Vicbourne head is all afloat with images of wonderful things, but making them into coherent stories for you is not happening at the moment. Bear with me, please! I hope this little bit will tide and tempt you for a little while longer... xoxo.

“I think the boxes can wait after all, Lord M,” Victoria says. Her voice feels slow and thick, as though she is dazed. “It seems we have much to talk about that is unrelated to matters of state.”

“I find I don’t want to talk at all, Ma’am,” he says. She is close enough not just to hear, but to feel, his voice come from within his chest. The deep vibrations thrill her entire body.

“You don’t?”

“No, Ma’am.” He swirls his hand on the small of her back. She feels his mouth alight on the top of her head in a gentle kiss. “I find I only want to hold you.”

“I believe I can oblige,” she simpers. “As I only want to be held by you.”

“Very still,” he whispers. “And very close.”

“Yes,” she replies and tries to fit her body even closer against him.

“But,” He says suddenly with a sharp breath, and he holds her at arms length for a moment and examines her. “You’ve upset yourself."  He trails his fingers over her neck and down toward her breast. “You’ve broken out in a rash. Should we call for your doctor?”

“Certainly not,” she quips. “I may be small, but I’m not nearly as delicate as you and Lehzen believe. If you continue to lavish your reassurance on me, I shall be quite well again in no time.”

“It’s just that I worry,” he says.

“Well, if you are so worried, tell Lady Portman to keep her kittenish paws off of your cravat and all will be well.” She blinks up at him with a smile that is stern and coy at once. “Also, you should know you look dashing in green. It quite matches your eyes.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Ma’am, but you must believe you have nothing to fear about Emma,” he says.

“Oh, I suppose I know that on a rational level. But it is something deeper. It is about all of the little pieces. Even if she knows you as well as a sister, that means she had the luxury of growing up with you, of learning your ways, knowing your temper. She had the privilege of caring for you in your darkest despair. It is something I shall never have. And I want it. Oh, William, I want it so!” She grips his jacket. Her head swims with how close they are.

“Perhaps you will have other pieces,” he whispers, and as he does, he leans down to her ear and his breath tickles the little hairs on the back of her neck. She shivers against him, pulls him even closer and moans softly. “What is in the past is no longer mine to give, but perhaps there are other things. . . would you like that?”

“Ye- yes,” she stutters.

“Would you?” He breathes against her and brushes his lips on her neck and shoulder. At the sensation of his mouth and the dampness of his lips and breath, Victoria feels her nipples crinkle within her corset. “What pieces of me could I possess that would possibly delight my Queen?” His hand comes up behind her neck and she falls back in his embrace.

“All of them. All of everything you are. I want. . . I want you!”

“Hush,” he urges. “We will be heard.”

“What do I care if we are heard? I am the Queen of England after all. I should have what I want, when I want it.” She grins up at him, but he releases her. He touches his forehead as if he has a pain. “What? What is it?”

“You are young, but you are wise. You must have at least a sense that political life does not work that way. Oh, you transfix me, but we must remember reality! Being found like this would mean complete disaster. I would not be the one to tie your name to scandal with mine. No. Not to mention the turmoil it would bring to our country. Please assure me there is at least part of you that knows this.”

She feels an instant chill at the absence of him. “You don’t mean to walk away from me again, do you?” She is appalled at the fragility of her voice. It seems if she is not declaring her Queendom, she is no larger than a ladybug with him.

He smiles sadly at her and takes her hand. “Would that I could,” he says. “But that does not answer my question, nor does it assuage my fear.”

“Well, it hardly seems fair.” She places her hands on her hips and walks around to her desk. “If I were a man, a king, no one would bat an eye if I wanted to seek companionship. It is a most egregious double standard that I am not allowed the same considerations. I shall have to see if I can do something about it.”

“Do not do anything rash, I beg you. Your reign is at a delicate point at the moment, Ma’am. You mustn’t overestimate yourself.”

“Back to Ma’am are we?” She sighs in irritation. “I suppose you’ll want Lady Portman to come back in here again to keep you company as well?”

He steps to her and runs a finger along the back of her arm. “I thought we had banished the green-eyed monster,” he chuckles, then grows serious again. “Several days from now, I will watch as you take the Coronation Oath and formally swear your fealty to your country. Whatever other feelings I have for you, I know you possess the character of a truly great leader. I’d not allow anything to stand in the way of that, Victoria, not even your stubborn temper or my desire. The crown is yours and you will wear it well.”

“I could not have done it without you, Lord M.”

“You flatter me,” he says and continues the light caress on her arm.

Victoria closes her eyes and tries to collect her head, but every inch of her is ablaze from the touch he visited on her arm. “I’m totally confounded,” she says at last. When she opens her eyes, she looks up and he is there, gazing on her with a tenderness that almost brings her to her knees. “I have shared with you before that I grew up most isolated. In my nursery it was just me, my dolls, and their houses. Of course I always had Lehzen, and she has always been most devoted and compassionate, but I did not have peers. I did not have friends or intimate relations. The closest thing I knew to companionship was the bond I shared with Dash, but he’s a dog and a poor substitute for human conversation. And now. . .”

“And now?”

“And now, I find myself suddenly wanting to pour my entire being into you, and to possess you completely as well. I don’t understand it and I don’t know how to do it! How is it I can be Queen and rule a nation, but I have hardly a clue about relating to other people, and I seem to have no control whatsoever over my own heart.”

“Victoria,” he says. “You sell yourself short. You relate very well with people and are so admired and sought after. But this,” he waves his hand between them, “is a complicated situation with no direct path. We have grown very close in a short matter of time. Our friendship is precious, but it must not be rushed.”

“But I want more,” she whispers and takes his hand.

“Yes,” he sighs. She steps closer to him and runs her hand up the front of his coat. When her fingers reach his neck, he closes his eyes and rests his head on her palm. She watches the way he reacts to her with a sense of fascination. She pops up onto her tiptoes and nuzzles his chin and runs her lips along his jaw. He moans and pulls her closer into him, and she feels the incredible strength in his arms and shoulders as they flex around her. She knits her fingers in his hair, much as Skerrett had done earlier to her, when she was in her tub. His eyes open and they are the entire world, but he whispers, “Not here. Not yet.” And he steps away from her.

Victoria opens her mouth to cry out in agitation, but is caught short by a knock at the door. They look quickly at one another, and she takes a hasty seat at her desk prior to calling, “Come in.”

Lord Alfred enters. “Pardon my intrusion, Ma’am, but Lord Melbourne is needed at the House.”

“What? Now?” Victoria attempts not to sound shrewish and only half succeeds.

“Yes. They are taking a vote on a slavery bill and his presence is very much required.”

“Ah, thank you Lord Alfred. I will be along momentarily.” Melbourne says. Victoria’s eyes flash over him in wonderment at the smoothness of his tone with Lord Alfred, when only a moment prior, he had seemed in a rapture in her arms.

Alfred bows out of the room. “Duty calls, then,” Victoria says. “But I thought they settled this abominable slavery situation ages ago.”

“Only partly, Ma’am,” he says. He begins to explain it to her, but she is only partially listening because he called her Ma’am again and after their moment of intimacy, she finds it jarring.

“You’ll come for dinner after the vote?”

“Of course,” he says. He makes his typical, formal exit.

Victoria goes through the boxes. Although she is preoccupied, she is able to complete her tasks with an efficiency that pleases her. Upon returning to her rooms, she plays a bit with Dash, then tries to sketch, but her mind cannot seem to settle.

“Would you like to play cards with us?” Harriet and Emma are sitting down at the little table, preparing to play.

“I suppose a few hands,” Victoria says and takes a seat.

“Whatever happened to your flowers?” Harriet asks suddenly. Victoria looks down to see that the lilies she had affixed to her dress are crushed.

“Oh, how careless of me,” she says. “I must have ruined them when I scooped up Dash before.” She stands and walks to a mirror to unpin the flowers. In the mirror, she sees Harriet and Emma give each other a knowing look, but she decides not to say anything. _Not here, not yet_ , she thinks, and feels heat swirl in her because she knows that on the other side of those words are the promise of _somewhere and soon._


	15. Correspondence: Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria

_Wednesday, 27 June, 1838_

_Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to Your Majesty, and begs she forgive his absence at dinner on the previous evening. The session of Parliament ran quite long, and Lord Melbourne was not released until half past ten, at which time, Lord Melbourne thought it would be most tardy to presume an audience with Your Majesty. Much as it plagued Lord Melbourne to imagine Your Majesty might miss his absence, he is also aware Your Majesty will be needing all the rest she can take prior to the grand day of Coronation, and did not want to disturb Your Majesty any further. Although, it must be said Lord Melbourne found himself most lacking Your Majesty’s companionship as well, as our lively conversations have kindled much favor in him._

_Lord Melbourne urges Your Majesty to consider well the matter on which we spoke and to maintain both a manner of patience and discretion. Lord Melbourne believes it to be in the best interest of everyone involved._

_Lord Melbourne eagerly looks forward to the Coronation on the morrow, and knows Your Majesty will perform in a most regal and deserving way. Lord Melbourne is proud to know and serve Your Majesty._

_........._

He affixes his seal to the letter and sighs. It will have to do. For now. 

Sitting back in his chair, he feels the frustration of separation from her jolt through him. He’s a man with urges, sure, but he’s also old enough to have figured out how to repress or sublimate such urges. Victoria on the other hand. . . he cannot help but smile and shake his head thinking of the impulsive, passionate child she is. But at the same time it delights him, it terrifies him.

He runs his finger over the still warm ridge of his seal, fondling the smooth, wax bead for a moment and he wishes it were her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Queen Victoria kept meticulous journals and was an avid correspondent. Although much of her letters have been either destroyed or heavily edited, many remain in some form or another. What I have proposed in this chapter is meant to emulate in formality and style the way Lord M would write to his queen. According to the letters I have studied, he began each with that greeting, "Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to Your Majesty. . ." Hopefully it is not plagiarism of his most excellent Lord M to use his salutation in my work. I give him full credit, where it is due. xxx.


	16. Gloriana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, you are all such honey bunny baby boo boos that you are getting two little chapters in one day! Also I am home sick and am going to go brain dead just lying here, so I have to write. . . I am seriously LOVING every word of EVERY comment. You all are giving me so much inspiration and LIFE to write this thing. I actually LOVED writing this chapter so much. I am probably also going to post it as a one shot because it is just special to my heart... but I am really curious to know what you think as well. xoxoxo.

Trimmed in ermine and red velvet, Melbourne feels not only mightily weighted down, but also a trifle ridiculous.

Victoria is simply resplendent.

He cannot keep his eyes from her.

Thousands of bodies line the streets of London and the pews of the Abbey, but for Lord Melbourne, she is the only being in existence.

Small as she might be, she fills the enormous space with her regal grace, and is utterly poised as she moves from one part of the protracted ceremony to the next. He stands as close to her as he possibly can, while remaining respectable, but watching this holy transformation makes him feel almost brazen in his desire to touch her.

She is all. She is everything. She is his only source of breath and life.

With her train bearers, she disappears into the dark chapel behind the altar, to lose her crimson robes, and to be fitted in the golden threaded super tunica. It will be a new garment fitted specifically for her, but it will be nearly identical to the one Elizabeth I and many queens before her wore. He has never been present at the coronation of a queen, let alone his queen. He is nearly overcome with it all.

The Abbey smells of moist, old stone and the stale, pungent humanity of so many people crushed together. It practically chokes him, and strikes him as absurd, when he knows her own aroma is more delicate than a wisp of candle smoke mixed with mystical amber and a secret spice he’d never be able to name. He longs for the sweetness he knows must lurk at the nape of her neck. He closes his eyes against the crowd and all the pomp. He imagines her placed on a high throne blanketed with flowers. He longs for her smell. He longs for her. Those moments when she is not within his sight are pure torture.

As he waits for her to reappear in her new, queenly attire, he is put in mind of a bridegroom, waiting at the altar for his bride to materialize. A melancholy chord strikes in him, as he realizes their story will never have such an ending. He straightens his shoulders under the thick and heavy cloak he wears, and tries to tell himself i _t will be enough. Just to breathe for today will be enough, and then, come what may. . ._

But he does not even complete the thought because she is before him, in the golden kirtle, over fine white, lace-trimmed linen, and it is as though he has never seen her before.

She steals his breath.

She sparkles.

She radiates light from deep within, and as she steps up to the altar, she looks to him and beams. Her head is bare as she proceeds to her throne and sits for the many rituals, which end in an enormous crown being placed on her head. The entire congregation likewise adorns their heads, and then the procession begins to give Homage to the crown and the Queen. When his turn comes, he touches his fingertips to the dazzling ornament on her head, then kneels before her. Fiercely, he presses his lips against her fingers. As he squeezes her hand, he feels her return the warm pressure. She clutches his hand in both of hers. He looks up at her and his eyes fill almost to overflowing. She looks to him and her eyes are brighter than the jewels in her new crown. There is cheering, but he cannot hear it. All goes silent for him, as the moment suspends him in some form of divinity, the likes of which he has never known.

He would gladly live forever on his knees right there, and worship her. Her gleaming face is the most open treasure box upon which he has ever laid his eyes. The rest is trapping. She is all.

She leans on his arm as they process to take the Sacrament and he can feel she does not tremble at all. She is confidently strong, but at the same time her presence on his arm is a solid reassurance of their connection. She peeks up at him as if to remind him she needs him there still. The ancient sword at his hip is mercilessly heavy, but she is lighter than a cloud to support. He leads her back up to her throne and almost hates to let her go, much as he adores seeing her take her rightful place.

He walks behind her out of the cathedral into the glowing day to the cries of her adoring kingdom. “Long live my Queen,” he whispers in unison.

Never has he known such joy.

He is not a man who believes in much. Long has he been wedded to irony and sarcasm bordering on heretical atheism to some. But he knows this, and he knows it true- he believes in her. And, so long as he breathes, he believes his one breath shall chase after the other, like the moon chases the sun, if only to be in her presence.

She is swept away with her ladies and he realizes his own face aches from smiling.

He finds her later, in her rooms, preparing to bathe her dog. She’s unbound her hair and it falls in a thick braid over her bare shoulder. Loose tendrils curl around her face. Despite her lavish gown and diamond jewels at her neck, there is something wild and natural about her, something even more enchanting than the royal vision he’d seen in the cathedral.

“I’m surprised to find you still up and about, Ma’am,” he says.

“Yes. Lehzen said the same thing, but I am feeling particularly energetic,” she says.

“I would imagine you are probably more tired than you realize, Ma’am. Be careful not to overexert yourself.”

“You are kind to worry so about me, Lord M,” she smiles up at him. Her eyes dart between Lord Alfred and Lady Sutherland and then she gives them a little roll back in her head, as if trying to insinuate something.

“May I congratulate you on a spectacular performance, Ma’am.”

“I suppose you may, Lord M.” Victoria says and stifles a yawn against the back of her hand. “But I must also congratulate you. The crowd cheered wildly for you when you gave your Homage. Wasn’t it splendid?”

“Indeed it was, Ma’am,” he says.

“Did you hear anything about poor, old Lord Rolle? I felt terribly to see him fall, but he seemed uninjured, did he not?” She asks as she dumps a ladle full of water over Dash’s head.

“I believe he was fine, yes,” He finds himself equally mesmerized watching her bathe her dog as he did watching her be crowned Queen of England.

“The Archbishop put the ring on the wrong finger- can you believe it? It was positively stuck! I thought I might have to have it cut off, but as it was I had to soak in ice for the better part of an hour just to get it off. And look, my poor finger is still swollen!” She waves her hand in front of him.

He wants to take her puffy, red finger between his lips. He wants to suck on it. He wants to swirl his tongue around it and soothe it in any way he might. He curses the presence of the others in the room that prohibit him from rushing toward her and doing just this just now. Instead, he says in a lower voice meant only for her, “Rest well, Ma’am. I expect to ride out with you tomorrow.” His eyes glitter green and gold in the candle light.

“Oh?” She sighs and lowers her voice as well. “That is something to which I shall look forward, but I must say you look rather like the cat about to get the cream. I like it. It suits you.” She turns back to Dash, and ruffles his wet fur. When she looks back up, the vibrance of her eyes startle him. “Lord M?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Thank you.”

“For what, may I ask?”

“For today. It could have been very daunting. All of the robing and disrobing alone was confusing and hectic,” she laughs. “And the people! So many people! So much noise. But through it all, I knew you were there. I felt you. I felt your silence and your strength and never for one instant did I feel alone or scared, because I knew you were close at hand. You gave me the courage to stand tall and proud. I did not fear falling for I knew you would catch me in the slightest of stumbles. I shall never forget that feeling, of knowing you were near. Thank you.”

“It is I who should thank you for allowing me to stand beside you, Ma’am,” he manages to say though tears sting the back of his throat. “No one ever would have guessed you were daunted by anything for even a moment. Your natural presence is so entirely regal, and that is something I never could have taught you, and something for which I will never take any credit. It is all your own.”

She stands and clasps her damp hands together over her heart. Her voice trembles as she whispers, “Your words warm and comfort me so, Lord M. Until tomorrow then.”

Her contentment with Dash gives him the strength he needs to force his body back to Dover House for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of the details in this chapter were taken from Victoria's journal entry of the day of her Coronation. Lord M played a very special and prominent role in her Coronation and she writes so fondly of him. I have written this from his perspective, more or less, and have fictionalized it, and of course also added some details from the PBS series which we all know and love (eg., her washing her dog at the end of the day). I was utterly charmed writing this, and imagining how spellbound Lord M would have been watching this. Indeed, Victoria mentions numerous times in her actual journal that at several moments during the day of her Coronation, Lord Melbourne was overcome with emotion for her, and his eyes were full of tears. I've just taken that a few steps further... for reasons... please let me know what you thought if you are so inclined. xoxoxo...


	17. But Only With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our lovely couple spends some quality time together at long last. . .

Morning makes a clean break in the sky.

They start out early, before much of the Palace is bustling, before anyone can heckle the Queen for riding out alone with her Prime Minister.

Without a word, they race through the park and out into the forest. With a sideways look and sly smile, they both know where they go. Neither lead, neither follow, rather they travel almost as one, borne on a breath of heated desire that may as well be the late June breeze. Honeysuckle thickens the air as they gallop, ever onward.

Shortly prior to reaching their destination, they slow the horses to allow them recovery from their punishing pace. They turn to one another and don’t know whether to smile or laugh or look away. They arrive in the clearing and find it exactly as they had left it some weeks before, completely natural and undisturbed. Melbourne dismounts his horse first, then assists Victoria off of hers, but his assistance is perfunctory and chaste as he must secure the horses. Even after the brief grip of his hands on her waist, and her touch upon his shoulders as she fairly bounces off of her horse, she finds herself wanting for the feel of him.

She waits patiently enough, but as soon as he finishes his task, turns, and approaches her, her patience expires. She removes her riding gloves and drops them idly to the ground. Reaching up, she clutches his face. She touches his chin and cheeks. Her eyes widen and glaze. He barely smiles, and yet for all the presumed severity of his face, his eyes are tender and inviting.

His hands find her waist. To say she is small. . . oh. . . words are useless. His hands encircle her waist and his breath catches in his throat at the sensation of how solid and how dainty she is all at once. Coupled with her touch against his face, to feel her under his own hands is to know something beyond this world.

In a bold gesture, she knocks his hat off his head, so she can touch his curls. He looks down at the hat where it has landed, then looks back to find she smiles, much like a child who believes she’s done something quite clever. He repeats this irreverent gesture to her hat, and sweeps it off of her head so it finds a place not far from his. She glances it at and giggles. Her mouth opens, but not to speak, only to gasp and grin, as he threads his fingers into her hair, effectively undoing her updo so it tumbles down around her shoulders. Then it is his turn to gasp, at the wild spectacle he has created.

His face no longer masks impassivity. His eyebrows turn up and his lips open in a solemn sigh.

“Yours is a beauty that should not be allowed,” he says as he gazes down upon her. “You are dangerously spectacular, Ma’am.” He strokes her jaw and his hands seem almost monstrously large against her delicate structure.

“Then it is a good thing I am Queen and I can make and break laws at my pleasure,” she says. She smiles coyly. Her eyes twinkle. He cannot help but laugh.

“We both know that is not the way the law works anymore, Ma’am, and yet, this little dimple so charms me I just might be convinced.” He rubs his thumb over her cheek.

“Kiss it then, and it will be yours by order of the Queen,” Victoria says huskily, almost uncertain from whence her voice comes. Melbourne lowers his face to hers and presses his lips to her cheek, cradling her head in his hands. Victoria grabs his head and presses it fiercely to her. She forgets for a moment to breathe, and when she remembers to inhale, she smells him- leather and spice and salt and sweat- the complex mingling of a man. “Oh!” She exhales. Their faces are closer now than they have ever been. He stops his kissing of her cheek and hovers next to her, breathing her in, just as she is breathing him.

“Your Majesty,” he whispers.

“No. No. To you I am Victoria. You named me. I am yours. Say it,” she pleads against his ear.

“Victoria,” he utters. “You are mine. And I am yours.”

“William.”

“Yes,” he sighs and clasps her to him. His hands stroke down her neck to her back and come to rest at her hips where he pulls her fiercely into him. She pushes her face away, just so she can look up at him. She runs her fingers over his face again. She touches his eyelids and his cheekbones and strokes his lips.

“Mine, now, mine. You are mine. I hereby claim these lips in the name of Victoria Regina.”

“Yes,” he murmurs against her mouth. “Yours alone. Yours and none other’s, my precious love.”

It is the moment.

It is the moment for which he has lived. To make this choice. . . to sink to her face and bury himself in her so he might breathe, or to remain above it all, to remain detached and distant and half deceased already. Every other moment has merely been a rehearsal for this choice which is now presented before him.

As if he has a choice.

Her lips are his, and he claims them for his own.

The back of her neck melts into the palm of his hand, and she bends back, graceful as a tulip, as he presses his mouth to hers. What is at first only warm and dry and closed, quickly becomes hot and wet and open as he shows her how a man kisses a woman. He wants it to be perfect for her, and it is. The softness of their lips and the desire of their tongue elicit lovely feelings and noises. She learns quickly, not only how to allow his tongue into her mouth, but how to take it and suck it and stroke it with her own, how to deepen the kiss by opening her mouth wider. Her little moans and whimpers and the way she clings at his neck destroy him. He cannot stand. He sinks to his knees with her in his arms, to the ground beneath them both.

He holds her and continues pressing kisses to her needy mouth, which already responds so eagerly. She is wild for it. She wishes it to never stop. Indeed, she wonders how she lived so long without such a glorious interaction, but then, would she ever desire this with anyone besides him? Surely not. His mouth is so silky and soft and it tastes clean and wonderful like a chestnut or maybe some ginger cake. On the forest floor, he cradles her in his arms. She touches his neck and feels his pulse race beneath her fingertips.

“Oh, oh,” she pants.

“What is it, Love?” He whispers and twirls a lock of her shiny hair around his finger.

“Only that I want this always now!”

“Yes,” he murmurs and uses his tongue to draw the outline of her lips. “Like this?” His voice reverberates against her.

“Yes,” she breathes back. “Like this. Always like this,” and she yields and opens for his tongue.

“And like this as well?” He rumbles deeply as he mouths her lips fully with his own, so hot and moist.

“Oh, yes, even more so,” she slips her fingers through his curls which are damp with perspiration from their ride and the sun and their ardent exertions. He tugs at her hair so her neck exposes, but there is not enough skin. Too much is covered by her blouse and the scarf of her riding costume. She hears his frustrated growl as his lips search below her jaw, and she pulls madly at her scarf to loosen it so he might kiss her there as well. The sensation of his mouth on her neck is almost maddening, especially when he finds a fleshy spot on the side and sinks his teeth in, and slowly, but steadily increases the pressure upon her. She wiggles and writhes in his grip so she can find his lips again. With a curious and kittenish tongue, she licks and laps at his lips, teasing him until he can bear it no more and opens to kiss her fully and deeply.

“Do you enjoy it?” He mumbles, their foreheads pressed together.

“More than anything. It is my first time and already it is my favorite thing in the world. It’s like nothing else! Not even like riding my horse or dancing,” she touches his lips with her fingers and he takes her fingertips in his mouth. “I should like to live inside a kiss. But only with you.”

“Your wish is my pleasure,” he says.

She kisses until her corset feels so tight she cannot breathe, and she has to stop. Then she lies on her back, and stares up at the trees and sky. She takes the pine scented air deep into her lungs and tries with all her heart to memorize the shapes of the clouds as they pass her by. She does not want to forget a single detail.

He lies next to her, and strokes her neck and shoulder. He takes her hand in his and brings it to his lips. He kisses her fingertips, one by one, and then her palm, and then her wrist. He presses her flesh to his face and breathes her.

“William,” she says and turns her head to look at him.

“Mmmh, yes,” he says and stares at her adoringly.

“Do you kiss anyone else like that?”

“Heavens no! Why, I don’t kiss anyone at all!” He is startled by her line of questioning, but he can tell she is not entirely reassured or finished. “What is it? Why do you ask this?”

“Well,” she begins and bites her lip.

“Go ahead, Victoria. We shall have no secrets,” he urges.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” she manages succinctly, and she looks up at the sky again.

“Oh,” he sighs. Of course she would have heard things. How could he have not assumed as much. “For that, I am more sorry than I can say,” he offers. He brings his hands to his face and rubs his eyes.

“Well, I’m not,” she says. “Pragmatically speaking, you are older than I. Your history is a part of you. It would be silly of me to be jealous of the past. But I would very much be jealous of anything in the here and now, you see?” She rolls over and props herself up so she can peer down at him.

“You’ve no cause for jealousy,” he says. “Not in the here and now and not ever. You are all I see. You are all I breathe. You are all, Victoria.” He traces her lips with his index finger.

“And, those, things- the rumored things- that you did with the other women,” she begins. “Are they true?”

“Yes. I’m afraid they are true.”

“Will you want to do them with me as well?”

“Victoria, no. Those things, they were needs I once had. I couldn’t begin to explain it if I tried, but they are behind me now and you, you alone are before me.” His lurid past flashes before his eyes. He blinks madly. “I need only to serve you and please you and maybe kiss you?”

“Thank you,” she whispers against his lips and kisses him again. She nibbles his mouth with her own and finds herself emboldened to suck at his lower lip. Their teeth clash momentarily as he lunges up to devour her more deeply, and they find themselves sitting very close together, facing one another so their hips are even with the other. She clings to him, nipping, and licking, and uttering helpless little moans.

“Come,” he whispers,” and pulls her closer so she sits upon his lap, and he holds her, much like a child. “Oh, so close, just to kiss,” he sighs, almost deliriously, in her hair and they resume their sweet kisses and caresses. She boldly grabs his cravat and pulls at it so it slips untied. When she finds the flesh beneath, she explores it first with her fingers, and then with her lips. He can feel her smile against his neck. And then she stretches so she can rub the skin of her own neck against his.

“You are softer than I would have imagined,” she muses. She kisses him again under his chin and then draws her tongue along the line of his jaw. He clasps her to him and utters a noise unlike any she has ever heard. She looks up to find his eyes closed and his head back. “Are you quite alright?”

“Yes, yes,” he murmurs and draws her mouth to his. “Are you certain you are not part sorceress? What you do. . . what you do to me,” his voice trails off in a groan and when she hears it, she adores it and adores the way it makes her heart race and her stomach flip.

“It is very exciting to me, too,” she whispers. “And when you make that noise, as you did just now, how very warm and wonderful I feel. I feel as though my own skin ends where yours begins and we are just the same.”

“Ah, it is precious. But perhaps we should stop. Perhaps we should have a walk or take some refreshment. Would you care for some wine?” He asks and seems almost uncomfortable. She giggles innocently.

“No. I want for nothing but you, William. Do you not feel likewise?”

“Well, I feel very keenly likewise, but. . . well, for a man, it is somewhat different. I do not want to be overcome by my passions with you.”

“And why not?”

“Victoria,” he begins. To his extreme relief, she climbs from his lap and kneels by his side. She takes his hands and searches his face imploringly. He attempts to smile at her and then draws himself up to his feet. He paces to his horse to get the flask of wine, which he hastily uncorks and draws on deeply. Victoria has sat this time with her hands in her lap, watching him. He drinks again and paces back toward her. Realizing he cannot offer the Queen of England wine straight from the container, he strides back to the horse and obtains a cup. He returns to her and pours her wine, which he offers her. Still sitting on the forest floor, she takes it, and sips it while examining him curiously.

“William. What are you thinking?”

“Oh, I am not thinking so much as feeling,” he sighs.

“And what is it you feel? Please tell me. You’ve said we are to hold nothing from one another now. Tell me everything.” She catches his hand and pulls at it so he is drawn back down to the ground.

He touches her lips and then her chin and he looks at her with eyes that are so familiar she feels she looks in a mirror. “Mmmh, well, I believe I am feeling a sense of yearning and wonder that is very potent.”

“Yes. I feel that as well,” Victoria agrees.

“Are you frightened?” William asks.

“No,” she says immediately. “Not at all. Not in the slightest.” She smiles at him and squints a little in the sunlight, but can see a strange look pass over his face. “Why do you ask me that? Are you frightened?”

“My precious love,” he says and pulls her against him. “I am terrified.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay in this chapter... like Lord M wanted it to be perfect for Victoria, I wanted it to be perfect for you, and I don't know if I accomplished THAT, but I do hope it was at least satisfactory. Do say hi, if you feel so inclined and let me know what you are thinking of this and if you feel like reading more. . . As always, thank you with my entire Vicbourne shaped heart for reading. 
> 
> PS, if this is too slow burny for you, and you need a quick fix of smutty smuttiness, please head over to my Modern Vicbourne one shot, this Delicate Seam. It is a much faster, shamelessly hawt, gratuitously porn without plot but with all the angsty feelings kind of situation for your review...


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